Strategic Planning: Turning Your Vision into Action

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We've all heard that, right? It's so true. Look, this is part of the Success Planning Method series. It's a five part series. This is part two. If you haven't listened to part one, which was visioning, please press pause and go back and listen to that. This is the exact planning model that I share with my clients, with people who are on PGA Tours, people who are in top sports teams, people who are running organizations, and people who just want to get more out of life. So I want to share this with you in detail. So this planning stage, if you start to plan, please always do this one thing, plan with the end in mind. Stephen Covey said it really well. Start with the end in mind. And that's we got to look at our, you know, five year vision, which we did. We did that together in our first session. So rewind and do that if you haven't done it. Because everything hinges on the end game, right? Great performers don't start with what's this first step? They start with where do I want to end up? So I hope you're really clear over that next five year period where you want to end up. What's your North Star? So let's take it back now to your 12 month game plan. I like to have a 12 month game plan for myself, for my business, for my health. To me, that's just so important. Having it for your family, if you've got family, really, really important. So we know where we're headed. So what I'm going to do now is ask you to go look at your five year vision. Go, okay, if I was to step back and just take a fifth of a step forward, that's one year forward, where might I end up? And you'd be surprised what you can achieve in a year. Most of us underestimate that we can achieve so much in a 12 month period. So all I want you to do is take a moment and go, okay, what are the key outcomes that I want to achieve this year? What would be remarkable? But do it across several pillars of your life. Don't just do it across business or wealth, do it across several things. So one, personally, let's start with that. In a year, where are you going to be? A great way to do this is go, okay, in 12 months from now, if I was to say to myself, this has been the most epic year of my life, what would have to happen in the next 12 months for me to say that with that much passion and that much excitement? What is that for you? Take a moment. Press pause if you have to, but identify what would have to happen in your personal life and that could encompass your physical health. Have you got any physical health goals around how you want to feel? Look, move. Let's take a moment and get clear on that. Relationships. Where would you like your key relationships to be? With family and friends? If you've got an intimate partner, where might that be? I want you to take a moment and just get clear on. In a year, success would be abc, whatever it might be. But take a moment to get excited about the growth of your relationships. And here's something I want you to think about. The quality and depth of your relationships directly reflects the quality and depth of your life. That's just a fact. Relationships give us fuel. When we're having a tough time with other humans, we tend to feel it, our emotions reflect it. So having a plan for growing those relationships, so important financially, what's your 12 month game plan financially? When you look at that bank balance or you look at your assets and what you own, what is that going to look like in 12 months? A lot can be done in that time, but pick a number. So in exactly 12 months time, I want to be at that number in terms of savings, investments, paying debt off, whatever it might be, right? Get clear on what that looks like. Career in 12 months time, I want to be here. If you're watching this, it's because you're growth minded. If you're watching this, it's because you want to develop your leadership. If you're watching this, you don't want to be in the same place now that you were a year ago. You just don't. You're growth minded. So I'm challenging you now. What does a year down the track look like for you professionally? And that pertains to the five year vision that you've done. We've got to think with the end in mind. Now we're bringing it back to 12 months. But 12 months from now, that's the end of your 12 month game plan. So I want you to think in those key pillars and there'll be other pillars that you'll want to add in relationships, finance, personal growth. All of these things are so, so important. But I want you to actually put it down on paper. Why you're making a commitment. When you're writing things down, you make a commitment. I had a friend who was 30 years old. He just paid his rent every month, he just paid for his groceries every month. And he spent a lot of time drinking alcohol and smoking weed. Not good, right? But at 30 years of age, he decided, you know what? I'm going to make a plan. I'm going to be a millionaire and I'm going to have a publishing company. Now, he'd never published a book, he'd never run a business and he had very little money. I think $28,000 was the amount that he had earned at his highest ever earning for a year. Right. But within a year and a bit, he made a million dollars and he'd started a publishing company. That publishing company is now one of the world's biggest ones. New World Library publishes books for Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and the likes. So, so Mark Allen, who I'm talking about, decided to make a plan. You've got to commit to it. Putting it down on paper. When you write on that page, it reinforces at a subconscious level what you are moving towards what you want. Your reticular activating system to move you towards that ras. That RAS is an internal filtering system that filters out and deletes all the noise and only hones in on what you want. So you got to get clear on what you want that's so important. Start with the end in mind. I'm super excited to get even more granular and get down to the next step for you in our next episode. But I really hope you've taken the time, especially at this time of year, to do this work. Five Year Vision was our last session in Visioning this was our 12 month game plan, which I just call planning. Before we go to planning, we've got to do visioning. So take a moment to do the work. I promise you you will thank yourself for doing the work. Just want to say a huge thank you for tuning in again. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe. If you're listening to this on any channels and you feel like this would be valuable, share it with one friend. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.