Have you ever taken a dream vacation? In 2014, my wife and I took one of those dream vacations, and the vision for the vacation started when we were watching the movie called “Mamma Mia” in 2011.
Both of us were fascinated by the Country of Greece and the Island of Santorini because of the gorgeous views and the blue Mediterranean Sea.
I remember looking at Rhonda and saying, “Babe, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could go to Greece?”
Picture a jet airplane that is going to take you from wherever you are all the way to your dream destination. Vacationing in Santorini all started with childlike dreaming and having a big vision. I honestly didn’t know if it would ever come true.
Notice how fun vacations and goal setting both progress from vision, to goal, to priorities, to action.
All goals start with dreaming at the 30,000-foot level. This is what I call your 3 year vision.
My mentor, Jack Canfield taught me to awaken dreaming by writing out my Be-Do-Have list. I like to ask my clients to write down 30 specific dreams they would love to accomplish over three years – 10 that you want to be, 10 that you want to do, and 10 that you want to have.
Download Your Dream Trip Handout Now to write out your 30 Be-Do-Haves for the next three years.
The second part of goal setting is to come down to a 12,000-foot level. Write down the top 12 goals or projects that you want to accomplish for the year.
I remember writing a goal at the beginning of the year to take my wife to Santorini Greece for our 30th wedding anniversary in 2014. I put a picture of the Santorini Island on that 3×5 card, and I wrote the affirmation “I am relaxing traveling with Rhonda to Greece in 2014”.
Writing your goals is an intentional step to achieving your goals. Habakkuk 2:2-3 says, “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that whoever reads it may run with it.”
Download Your Dream Trip Handout Now to write your top 12 goals for the year.
In the third step of this process of achieving your goals, you need to prioritize your goals at a 3,000-foot level.
I have done a lot of flying lately, traveling around the world, doing workshops for entrepreneurs and CEOs and one of the things that happens when you are getting ready to land is you’ll hear the captain say, “Prepare for landing!”
Your dream destination is now visibly in sight. It’s time to buckle up, pull your seats forward, and take care of the smaller details to prepare for your landing.
Diana Scharf Hunt once said, “Goals are dreams with deadlines.”
What I have found helpful is to prioritize your 12 goals for the year into Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Then list the top 3 priorities you need to accomplish to help bring that goal to a reality? In essence you are chunking your goals into 90-day plans.
Traveling to Santorini for Rhonda and I was scheduled in Q2 – May 2014. There were several priorities we had to take care of like, hotels, passports, credit cards, etc. before landing in Santorini.
Download Your Dream Trip Handout Now to prioritize your goals for four quarters. In this fourth step of the process of going to your 2016 dream trip, it’s where you’ve got to put the rubber to the road, and that literally means that you’ve got to think about landing your plane on the runway.
Think of this as your weekly action steps.
Every Sunday or Monday, I encourage you to write down what are your top 3 action steps to complete either 1 of your 90-day priorities, or all 3 of your 90-day priorities.
All dream vacations and all dream trips begin first with a high level 30,000-foot vision of what you want to be, do and have.
Then it comes closer to that 12,000-foot level where you get clear on your goals for each month of your year.
The third step is to prepare for landing, and that means coming down to that 3,000-foot level, writing your top 3 priorities and accomplishing those in 90 days.
Finally, you have to set weekly action steps to accomplish those 90-day goals until finally, you have landed in your beautiful vacation spot and landed that dream. Remember goals need landing gear as well as wings.
Download Your Dream Trip Handout Now to write down and celebrate your top 3 weekly action steps toward achieving your goals. It was so much fun, setting the goal and preparing for our trip to the beautiful island of Santorini in 2014. One of the best highlights of the trip was meeting two of my coaching clients in person for the first time, one in Greece and one in Turkey.
Hopefully now you see how vacations and goal setting both progress from vision, to goal, to priority, to action.
Who knew that goal setting could be fun just like planning your dream vacation!
Bring GALLUP Certified Strengths Coach and Convene Resource Specialist Brent O’Bannon to your Forum Day or organization and learn the art and science of strengths based goal setting. Learn more at http://brentobannon.com/strengthsfinder-keynote-and-workshops/