Goal Planning Software: useful skills

Goal Planning and our Meta-Programs

To make our goal planning successful, the software is not everything. There are also other things to consider.

Whatever you do in your life, it's always an advantage to know yourself (your ways, structure of thinking, knowing your beliefs).

In this first part, I'm going to discuss our way of thinking. Therefore I'm going to use the NLP meta-programs.

NLP: Neuro Linguistic Programming

Meta-programs: filters that determine how we perceive the world around us.

The four meta-programs:

proactive or reactive

point of view: big picture(general) or detail

use, concept or structure

time orientation: past, present or future

Am I proactive or reactive?

Do I just react on things that happen in my life, or do I prepare myself on what's going to happen?

Example: getting bills. Two possible ways to act:

1) I get the bill, want to pay and find out that I have no money. Start finding ways to get money. (reactive)

2) I know that I will receive bills. I already put money on my save account and when the bills arrive, I'm able to pay.

Note: Neither of them is good or bad. You will recognize yourself as proactive or reactive.

I'm a very good problem solver, so situation one is very familiar.

To work with goals, it's interesting and most effective to act proactively.

So I plan regularly moments to be proactive, because my tendency is to react on things.

Now that I'm in a proactive state,

how am I going to interact with information?

When working with information (goals), what is the size of the pieces of information I naturally think about? Do I tend to work with large, medium-sized or small pieces of data?

What is my point of view? Do I see the big picture, or am I into details?

I prefer (my tendency) to see the big picture.

For example: My goal is to become rich. Because I'm a global thinker, it's directly clear to me or I immediately see the picture. I don't need more details.

But what does it mean to be rich? A lot of money on my account, having a big house, being the owner of several companies,...

With such a global view, it's time to go into detail.

I want that amount on my account.

I want to have a house with 5 rooms, a garden and a swimming pool.

I will be owner of 3 companies.

For those who are into details, describing every detail of the room becomes more powerful when they start with the big picture.

How do I approach my work?

We have three mental processes: use - structure - concept

Use: just doing it, may end up in chaos

Structure: the way it's ordered or organized

Concept: the academic approach

In short, this category addresses the following question: "When approaching a task or project, what is the internal process I use? An additional question is: "How do I distribute my available energy and time to these 3 processes?"

While writing (use) I get an idea on what I want to tell (concept). Luckily I used a word processor so I can reorganize my thoughts (structure). This works great for brainstorming and short texts.

However, this is not the best strategy for writing a book. In writing a book, "Concept - Structure - Use" approach will work much faster.

Spend enough time on each aspect to realize your goal and become successful.

Time Orientation

These are the questions we address with the temporal processing meta-programs: When I am working on a project or task, or when I am organizing something, or thinking, in what time reference do I tend to be? Am I remembering the past? Am I thinking about the present? Or am I planning or projecting the future?

Goal planning is something that will be realized in the future. For those who tend to hang on to the past, it's good to use this information but they have to be aware that goal planning is future-oriented.

Now we have discussed the four meta-programs.

We are not talking about bad or good. It's just a preferred way of thinking (Or maybe it's just a habit.)

For example: I am reactive. I am a global thinker. I am a doer. The present is my time orientation.

These meta programs fit perfectly with my daily life. But when I start planning goals, then it's very useful to think in a proactive way with a time orientation directed to the future. And when I'm describing my goal, I start thinking globally and then go down into detail. I then distribute my energy equally on the three different internal processes: use, structure and concept

So, a successful goal planning is not dependent on the goal planning software alone. We also have to prepare ourselves mentally.