Category Archives: Experiments

Experiments conducted

Personal Strategic Plan – Reflections Post Planning

Experiments, Goal Achievement
Keep your Personal Strategic Plan alive through frequent reflection and review.
Keep your Personal Strategic Plan alive through frequent reflection and review.

It is now nearly three months now since I conducted my personal strategic planning process using Gary Ryan Blair’s Personal Strategic Planning Programme.  In this article I share my reflections on the process/product.

Overall this is a good product if you want one programme which will comprehensively deal with planning in your life.   You sit down and study the resources provided and work through the questions and exercises and you end up with a written plan for your life.

The program shows you how to develop:

  • Your Vision Statement
  • Your Legacy Statement
  • Your Mission Statement
  • Your Personal Philosophy
  • Your Personal Code of Ethics
  • Your Lifetime Objectives
  • Your Goals
  • Your Action Plans
  • Your Organizing Themes
  • Your Personal Board of Directors.

The Personal Strategic Life Plan is a digital download consisting of both high-quality mp3 lessons and study guides that are instantly delivered on ANY Device.

Reflections

I completed all sections of my plan in May 2016 and it is now August.  How time flies! Having completed your plan it needs to be implemented, reviewed, and revised on an ongoing basis.  This is where the rubber meets the road as they say.

This is where I have realised that I need to improve!  Your plan is dead unless you include it in regular reflection and review.  The ideal time to do this is on a weekly basis at your AAR (After Action Review).   The key to success is not the plan but regular action and reflection and to imprint the plan in your mind. Otherwise when you finish planning it will just languish there on your computer and not be acted upon.  We also need daily habits which support the actions which lead to the plan being implemented……we need consistent action to achieve goals.

My overall verdict is that this is a good product for planning but to make it truly successful then you need to keep your plan alive through regular reflection and review as you work towards your goals.

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50% discount and a Free Kindle Book worth $4.95

If you would like to purchase a copy of the Personal Strategic Planning Programme please use the promo code success for a 50% discount.  In addition email me at tcarroll@lifeisalaboratory.com  and I will send a free copy of my book ‘Experiments in Personal Change‘ to all who subscribe to Gary Ryan Blair’s Personal Strategic Planning Programme using the link below:

Experiment: Enthusiasm

Experiments

Experiment:  Act Enthusiastic for One Month

Experiment for February 2016

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“You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.”

Henry Ford

Enthusiasm

“If you want to be enthusiastic,
act enthusiastic.”

Dale Carnegie

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Enthisiasm

An American man named Frank Bettger wrote the book ‘How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling’ in 1947.  See a review of the book here.

Bettger had been a major league baseball player but an arm injury forced him to look elsewhere for employment. Though he was initially a failure in the profession of insurance sales, he gave himself a major boost in the field by drastically increasing his enthusiasm. He had learned the importance of enthusiasm from his previous sports career.

When Bettger was a baseball player, he was fired from a team for being too laid-back. On his way out the door, his manager told Bettger to put some life and enthusiasm into his work.  Unhappy about his demotion and a drastic drop in pay, Bettger decided to take the manager’s advice to heart and inject some enthusiasm into his game.

To prove a point to his former coach, he decided he would double his enthusiasm for his new team. This tiny trick worked so well, that he became the top player on the team and eventually received a raise of 700 percent!

He applied the same level of enthusiasm to his insurance sales later in life and again saw a major difference in terms of results. “Force yourself to act enthusiastic, and you’ll become more enthusiastic” was his number one rule.

He challenged people to try this for just 30 days, because this one change could easily revolutionise your life.

“If you don’t FEEL enthusiastic, ACT enthusiastic. Soon, you’ll BE enthusiastic. Double your enthusiasm and you’ll probably double your income.”

Frank Bettger

This experiment therefore is to put Frank Bettger’s advice to the test and act enthusiastic about whatever I (and you) are working on for the next one month.  Each morning I intend to spend a few minutes reflecting on enthusiasm and visualise myself acting more enthusiastically in everything I have planned to do that day.  I will make a note in my diary of what happens each day and see what difference forcing myself to be enthusiastic makes.  I will share the results in a follow-on article in March 2016.  Make sure to sign up to the Life is a Laboratory newsletter to keep informed of future articles.

Hypnosis Downloads also have a self hypnosis audio on enthusiasm which will no doubt supercharge my focus on being more enthusiastic and I aim to use this as well.

Good Luck with this experiment!

You should also aim to spend time with enthusiastic people as enthusiasm is contagious. Since your time and energy is limited, pay attention to how you feel after spending time with people in your life, and seek out those who fill you up, energise and inspire you.

“If you give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be – enthusiasm.”

Bruce Barton (1896-1967)