Have you ever missed a date with your spouse because you were working your business?

How about time with friends?

Or the opportunity to be there for your kids?

If so, you are not an entrepreneur.

You’re cog in a wheel to a business you happen to own.

A business that’s running you.

If you are ready to take the control back from your business…read on.

The path to freedom, flexibility and fun in your business is built on the five foundations.

Last week, I talked about the first: Clarify Your Vision.

If you can’t answer the question “What do I want?” you need to read that post.

This week, let’s dig a little deeper.

The second foundation is: Create Your Plan. 

A well-designed action plan is more than setting a big goal and doing things.

There are critical elements that must be present.

More than a list of tasks, you must begin with choosing strategies.

Strategies get you from where you are to where you are going – and there are a million different routes you can take.

You can do anything, but you can’t do it all at once.

So, it’s time to choose.

Have you selected your strategies?

Now, break them into perfectly sized chunks of doingness.

Not too big and not too small.

Really big objectives seem incomprehensibly huge as a single challenge.

That is a recipe for procrastination and fear.

But if you break that goal into its smallest parts, you will drown in them.

There are way too many tasks and you’ll get overwhelmed with too much to do.

This also leads to fear-based procrastination.

You need to find the sweet spot.

A well-designed plan lives in the sweet spot between the suffocating overwhelm of tiny details and the crushing overwhelm of enormity.

Think Goldilocks – it can’t be too big, or too small. It must be just right!

Once you’ve found the perfectly sized chunks of doingness…

You need a clear prioritization system.

Everything isn’t urgent.

It can’t be.

Or BOOM! You’re back to overwhelmed.

Distraction takes over, and…you guessed it.

You are left with an inability to get anything done.

Nothing happens except more stress.

And things on your list stay there forever.

So, start creating your plan. Next week we are on to the third foundation – Shift Your Perspective.

Until then… stay connected!