Daily Planning Can Make You Powerful...

...But Only If You Do It Right

For the past 23 days I've been filling out a checklist of 9
things I want to become positive habits in my life.

Absolutely the hardest of them all to get myself to do was the
daily plan.

Why did I resist this?

For two reasons:

One I had a sense of being trapped by goals and plans.

Two I had the self-image of someone who just didn't follow
through.

To handle the first problem I used the Lechy Method of handling
my beliefs.

Lechy found that one way you could help a person get rid of one
belief by showing them that it was inconsistent with another.

So here's what I told myself:

"If you let the feeling of being trapped keep you from doing the
things you want then you are really trapped. You are trapped by
feelings from the past and will never get what you want.

These things you want are choices you have made. No one is
forcing them upon you.

But something inside of you is forcing you to feel trapped by
them. That's the real trap.

Your goals, your plans, those are your choices. If you don't
like them you can choose something else."

After giving myself that talk the feeling of being trapped went
away and so far it hasn't come back.

But if it does I know just what to say to myself to get back on
track.

Now the second problem was solved by visualizing myself creating
a daily plan and excitedly following through on that plan.

After doing this for several days it became easier and easier.

I noticed I would write my plan earlier and earlier, to the point
now that I start writing some parts of my plan the day before.

(Just a note: I did the visualizing first and when the feeling of
being trapped emerged I had that pep talk with myself.)

Why is this so important?

One thing I noticed about following a daily plan, besides getting
more done in less time and with a greater sense of ease, is that
I began to have a powerful sense of self-confidence.

Dr. Maltz talks a lot in his books about how having a sense of
direction improves the self-image. Well, a daily plan is a
practical way to have a strong sense of direction.

The daily goals strengthen your self-image and along with
everything else begins to give you a feeling of self-confidence
and empowerment that's indescribable.

I have to say that because of my daily and weekly plan I've
already accomplished every goal I had this week by mid-day today
(Thursday).

And I've already started working on next weeks goals.

HURRAH!