Setting Your Master Plan - Jan Fisher

Setting a Master Plan

The best Master Plan that I have read about was set out in “The Power of Focus” written by Jack Canfield, Mark Hansen and Les Hewitt. This system is called the B-Alert programme. It sets out a daily plan for how you can achieve your master plan (your goals) as well as maintain a life balance. B-Alert gives you a formula to create a well balanced day; do it seven times and you have a fabulous week; persevere for four weeks and you will have a great month. Do it for a year and you have established a habit that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life.

B stands for blueprint. This is your preparation for the day, your plan of how you are going to do your day; your appointments, projects, priorities. I usually do this at night.

 Action involves concentrating on the most important activities that will move you towards accomplishing your goals. This is not just being busy but, working on moving forward on your plan

 Learning to increase your knowledge. Use videos, DVDs, CDs, courses and mentors.

 Exercise for thirty minutes daily to re-energize yourself.

 Relaxation is a time to get rid of daily stress. Take a nap, meditate, listen to music, or enjoy time with your family.

 Think about and reflect on the day. Use this time to review your goals, visualize and develop new ideas, perhaps write in a journal, or start an ideas book.

 This is all very well I hear you say but I don’t have time to do this. So combine some of the activities. When you are out walking or exercising use this time to plan your day, relaxing and switching off can happen over lunch or driving home from work. Getting a handle on your day or your week gives you great power as it means that you are steering your ship. Feeling in control empowers you and increases your confidence level. This confidence carries you through all types of daily grind.

 You may ask yourself where all this belongs in the whole matter of image and how you present yourself to the outside world. I decided very early in my career that looking great on the outside, polished and well-presented, will not take you very far at all, if your appearance does not match up with, or is not congruent to, how you feel on the inside. It is like refurbishing a shaky building or papering over the cracks in a wall.

 Self-image identifies the issues of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-purpose. These are the fundamental building blocks on which you develop your image. Just as a great suit is not going to cover poor interview skills or bad manners, neither will the latest fashion hide any underlying insecurities in yourself or a shy diffident persona.

 All of us have it within ourselves to reach any possibility that we could dream or wish for. All it takes is the time to set goals, to achieve a life plan that brings about self-actualization. When we set goals and achieve them it makes us feel really good about ourselves and gives us the confidence and the boost, to move forward. Confidence becomes a habit, and is built upon by every success, big or small, that you have in your day. It gives you the power to expect more, live better, and enjoy what you are doing. Overcoming the challenges that life presents, builds within us an unshakeable belief in ourselves.

 The following poem was taken from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech. Here is a man who faced every challenge, and won. He had unshakable belief in himself and his direction in life.

 Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.

 Source: A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson