New Year's Revolutions

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New Year's Revolutions:

Why revolutions? Well if you think about it, New Year is the perfect time to change EVERYTHING you don't like about the way that you live, work, behave. We know what hasn't been working for us  - I mean if it was working for us, we wouldn't need a daily reminder now would we!.

Whilst every day is a chance to begin afresh, January 1 seems to be the perfect opportunity to re-write our futures. We have a whole 12 months ahead of us to do amazing things.

But and here is the thing, you have to be honest with yourself. What are you willing not to do, in order to make the changes. It's no good saying you want to be debt free by December if you continue with your bad spending habits. Or that you want to be 20 kilos lighter by June if you continue to eat poorly and exercise rarely.

12 months to think about, 12 months to plan. And given how fast the last 12 months disappeared if we don't set aside time over the next couple of days to plan those 12 months, we are going to be in exactly the same place we are now, just 12 months older.

So planning is part of the revolution process. How many generals go into battle without some sort of plan? OK the plan may fail, but they know how many troops they have at their disposal, they know how much fire power they have and where they are going to make their initial assault, and they will make adjustments to their plan based on the responses of their enemies. And no I make no apologies for referring to war, after all we are waging wars with ourselves all the time. We are fighting our bodies needs by feeding them poorly, and still expecting them to put in a 16 hour day - every day. We are waging a battle against what we really want to do against what pays the bills and generally speaking, the other side is winning.

So a revolution - it's time to fight back.

What do you want to achieve?

When do you want to achieve it by?

What steps are you going to take to get there?

OK, the first two seem to be easy enough...we can all make big pronouncements. But the final question - what steps are you going to take? That one seems to stymie most people.

So - Break it down. But begin with the end in mind.

Now this is not where i ask you to visualise and you shall receive, rather think about backwards planning.

Imagine building a house. Do you know what kind of house you want? Can you buy one of the plan or do you need someone to draw up the plans for you? Where do you find someone who can do that - people who build houses for a living, where are they based - try the telephone book, or drive to the suburbs where the houses are being built at the moment.

Do you know where you want to live? What size block do you need to build the house you are after? Can the house fit, or do you need to remove the indoor swimming pool and the 10th bedroom? Should it be 2 storey rather than single?

What money do you have to complete the project? Have you spoken to the banks yet? Do you have an existing house you need to sell in  order to finance it, where will you live whilst this is going on?

As a major project, building a house sounds impossible to complete if you decide one day that you are going to buy a couple of dozen pallets of bricks and simply start. You may end up with no windows and 6 doors. And if you don't own the land you're building on, then someone somewhere is going to get a little grumpy.

But each step in the planning process does not take much time or effort to do.

Where is the land?

Where are the builders?
What style house?

What plans do you need to draw up

What permissions do you need

How much will it cost?

and so on.

Every major project can be broken down into small incremental steps that over the course of a few weeks and months can be achieved quite easily.

So - now is the time to get serious about planning. Do not think you can't plan your future, because you can.

You have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Take away the time you need to sleep, work, get to and from, make and eat dinner....what time have you got left? NOT MUCH and this is where most people's revolutions fail. At the first sign of conflicting demands, we revert back into old habits and behaviours. We conveniently forget that we were going to do this, that, and the other and we revert back to cream cakes and red wine in a bid to forget that our lives are going nowhere.

So planning is vital. What do you want? When do you want it by? What are you willing to do? Break it down, but start with the end in mind.

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