Get a Game Plan

When I was playing high school football, out coaches had a game plan. They typically had the first 25 to 50 plays ready to go. Most of the time the plays were designed so that the coaches in the booth could see how the defense reacted to them. These same plays had similar looks, or motions, as other plays. Depending on how the defense reacted, the coaches would later call a play that looked similar but had a different design. I.e. a play action pass or a run play that looked like a passing play.

You need a similar game plan for your life and the individual activities that make it up.

For instance if you have a big meeting with your boss or co-workers you need to have a plan of attack. What are your talking points? Not only that, what do you predict the responses will be to your actions. You must prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Imagine having a big sales meeting with a client that you have been chasing for years. If you are able to land the deal this could make your companies year, and this is the first quarter. Being a seasoned sales professional you should have all your best talking points ready to go. You should be prepared for all the objections on what could be bought up and know how your product/service compares to the other companies out there, especially their current supplier. Going in there cold and rolling the dice to see what happens. I can almost guarantee that the odds will not be in your favor. Have a game plan.

What about in your personal life, if you are courting someone you have to have a game plan on how you plan out the date. You could just wing it, and see what happens. Or you could be prepared. Understanding up front what your date likes and does not like and design the evening around those. You could even have several additional options in case your first option is not ideal. For instance, say you make reservations at a steak restaurant, on the way there you find out that he/she just ate at the same place for lunch. Going again may be ok, but I can tell you from personal experience that it is not an ideal situation. So having a secondary or even a tertiary eating establishment will enable you to pivot quickly and keep on moving. Have a game plan.

In your personal life, you should have a game plan on where you want to go. I usually recommend having a plan that starts as far out as you can imagine. This will be a very high level plan. For example, you want to be financially independent and be able to travel the world at your leisure and enjoy life.

From there you can start bringing down the timeline. Start at 20 years, be a bit more specific, then 10, getting more specific still, then 5 years, 1 years, 6 months, 90 days, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day. As the time life gets smaller the game plan should be more specific and you should have pivot options. The options can be different from each other but they have to move you closer to your weekly, monthly, 90 day, yearly, 5 year, 10 year, 20 year, and lifetime goal and vision. Having a game plan will enable you to be ready for what life throws at you. Not only that your stress level will be reduced and you will probably be able to sleep better at night.

The Super Bowl winning Coach Bill Walsh was known to have up to 50 plays scripted that he was ready to run before each game. This game plan enabled him to stay the course, regardless of what had happened after each play.

SO if you don’t have a game plan, I suggest you start putting one together.