My self improvement system has a plan. Every self improvement system has a plan.

That's right YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE A PLAN

However I don't give you the plan, you come up with that yourself. I don't tell you what to do. I give you the tools to do it. What you DO with your plan is my concern. Again everything I do has a physical application.

Let's look at what a plan is. A plan is just a list of mini goals because sometimes your big goal just seems too big, too overwhelming. By making a plan you break your idea down into manageable, bite size chunks that are easy to digest. And I don’t mean making up a plan in your head. I mean a well thought out, written down plan.

The type I use is just a simple tree branch sort of an affair with the goal at the top. This is broken into categories, further sub categories, further sub categories. It's important to put down even the smallest details like each person you need to call. There’s a very good reason for doing this. Every time you finish something that’s on the list you put a line through it in RED ink and pretty quickly you can see yourself making progress.

It’s a very powerful visual reminder that helps motivate you to keep going. I have been doing this for over twenty years and still I’m always amazed at just how quickly the list get crossed off. I'm a firm believer that motivation lies within all of us. Sometimes it's a sleeping bear that needs to be roused. I find that having visual reminders helps me enormously to summon this motivation. My workspace is cluttered with these sorts of lists all with red ink through them. You just keep crossing them off. Because you have made each one a small, achievable task they get done. All of a sudden, there comes the day you get to the last thing.

This is where things can get scary because you have to step out of your comfort zone but you know what, there are ways to deal with that too. There was a piece of advice that I heard from the well known British TV magician, Paul Daniels. Being an adventurer at heart and having a passion for climbing and mountaineering has kept me on a steady diet of highly motivating stories that involve overcoming fear. Strangely the one overcoming fear story that resonated most with me came from a magician. I think the reason why is because I like most people shuddered at the thought of standing up in front a crowd and speaking. His advice helped me slash through that fear. I'll share it with you a little later. It's all part of this self improvement system.

Are you enjoying the ride so far? Stay tuned.

See the whole self improvement system here