A Personal Success Plan

This past weekend, my family and I scheduled a one-week vacation for this summer. The process we followed is one we use for many decisions at our home, using The Social Response Pyramid™ as a Personal Success Plan. It’s the same plan I use with many of my clients as I listen to their stories, and help them sort out “next steps” for reaching their goals. Here’s how the process works:

1.     OUR CONTEXT: First, we examine the reality of what we have to deal with. This includes work schedules, financial constraints, other summer commitments, travel preferences, favorite destinations (and their availability), etc.

2.     OUR DREAMS: Obviously, there are many things we dream of doing as a family. While not all are feasible at this time (especially given each of the things detailed under “OUR CONTEXT,”), examining our dreams helps to identify our values and keeps some of those more distant dreams alive in our conversations.

3.     WHAT’S DO-ABLE: We made decisions about what we’d like “OUR CONTEXT” to look like at vacation time. We decided we’d like a 6-day vacation on our 26-foot boat (cozy quarters, but we’re able to trailer it to our destination, and it’s much less expensive to stay on that and prepare our own meals than to stay in a hotel and eat in restaurants…plus we enjoy it!)

4.     STRATEGIES: We brainstormed many possibilities, including some favorite destinations, and some that we’ve dreamed of going to but haven’t yet tried.

5.     RESPONSES/NEXT STEPS: We worked through the next three steps that would get us to our vacation: making reservations at each of our three destinations for the 6-day vacation, determining a budget and setting aside the funds, and clearing our work schedules for the week we chose.

Many years ago, I developed The Social Response Pyramid™ to help people to be more effective in their interactions with others. In keeping with the mission of SOCIAL INCITES, LLC, the Pyramid can be used to grow both personally and interpersonally! I use it frequently, not only to teach my students and to interact more effectively with my own family, but also to evaluate my life and plan for my own success! Without it, our vacation remained a dream. Once we took time to step through the process, we were able to be productive, make decisions, and have now worked through the steps that will make our goals a reality! Even though there’s still snow on the ground in Michigan, we now have a vacation scheduled that helps all of us look forward to summer!

For a very limited time, you can download a FREE copy of the Personal Success Plan template from our web site! I hope it will help you step toward your goals, too!

---