How Will You Respond in 2016?

It’s almost the end of 2015! That means it’s time to start planning out your goals for 2016.

Goal planning/setting is great, but it’s not enough. After you create your action plans, you need to take it one step further and create your Response Plans.

(Note: Keep reading to the end to get your free “Plan Your Response” Worksheet!)

Many years ago, in the early days of my speaking business, I reached a point where I thought I had “made it” (At least financially). I had a part time job that I liked and gave me good income. I had a relationship with a training company that was sending me regular work. My keynote speaking business was slowly but surely growing.

In December of that year I looked at my projection for the upcoming year and realized, “wow, if things stay basically the same – if nothing even gets any better – I am going to have a great year and break six-figures.” Woo-hoo!

It was shortly after this realization that the economy tanked. The training company stopped sending me work. Keynotes became harder to come by. And that great part-time job? They started laying people off and eventually closed their doors.

So much for my great year.

However, all of these changes weren’t the problem. The real problem was how I responded to those changes.

Or, more accurately, how I didn’t respond.

Despite the fact that the economy tanked, business was slowing, and I lost my financial cushion, I just kept doing my thing, plugging away, hoping my old plan would still work.

It didn’t. Life got hard. Credit card debt increased.

Not. A. Smart. Plan.

Looking back, this experience taught me one valuable lesson:

How You Respond is More Important than How You Plan or What Happens to You

As we move towards the end of the year, you are probably butting together goals, resolutions, plans, etc. for 2016.

Great – good for you!

Chances are however, that you have not spent time thinking about how you will Respond when things don’t go as planned.

And that is the missing link.

There are two kinds of stimuli/interruptions:

1. Expected – The ones you should see coming. Once the economy started to turn I should have anticipated a big change in my business.
2. Unexpected – The surprises that we can’t hold against you for not seeing.

For this article, I am only going to talk about the expected interruptions. Responding to unexpected stimulus will be the topic of a future post.

As you prepare for 2016, definitely create your Goals, Strategies, Tactics, and Action Items.

However, to truly stay on track (or better yet, to be able to leap to a new better track), take some time to think about the interruptions and how you will respond to those.

For each goal, strategy, or tactic, come up with the top few stimuli that could interrupt you. They could come in any form – big or small, internal or external.

For each interruption, write down how you will respond to it.

For example, if your goal is to increase your sales by 25%, and you plan to do it by increasing the number of networking events you attend, some of your potential interruptions may be:

• Your efforts lead to no extra business
• The time spent attending events takes away from your core activities and business suffers
• You’re not connecting with the right decision makers and influencers
• You can’t find enough quality events to attend
• And so on

How will you respond to these?

• If my networking leads to no extra business, I will switch my efforts to plan B
• If networking takes away time from other core activities, I will reorganize my day to make sure I get the key things done before attending events
• If I don’t connect with the right people, I will switch tactics to deepening my current relationships so we can help each other connect with right people.
• If I can’t find enough quality events I will expand the geography of events I attend and try some new groups.
• And so on

None of the above examples are “right.” The tactics, interruptions, and responses will be different for everyone.

As your year progresses, keep your response list handy make sure you stay on track when things change – because they probably will!

Bonus! Get Your Free “Plan Your Response” PDF Now!