Plan, Plot, Strategize

It’s the final quarter of 2020. It’s been a year of shifts, pivots, and reprioritizing. Every scenario has a purpose. We might not see what the purpose is in the midst of a situation, but I believe, the shifts that happened during this COVID era is to light a spark, get us motivated and moving toward our goals and dreams; to align us with our purpose.

There’s a meme that reads, “You come home, make some tea, sit down in your armchair, and all around there’s silence. Everyone decides for themselves whether that’s loneliness or freedom.”

That’s a powerful statement with opposing polarities and only you can determine for yourself if that’s a negative view or a positive one. Your view however; can be impactful in shifting your mindset.

The Law of Polarity

Negatives and positives, strengths and weaknesses, light and dark, inner and outer—the Law of Polarity teaches us that there’s duality in everything. We can’t appreciate the good without experiencing the bad. Oftentimes there’s first a negative action that forces us to make changes and break patterns, in order to create positive outcomes.

quantify

“What gets measured gets improved.” - Peter Drucker

A S.W.O.T. analysis is a great measurement tool used in business, divided into quadrants. Each of the four sections has a specific combination of negative and positive values (You see? Even a measurement tool has opposing polarities):

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

It’s a strategic planning technique used to help a person or organization identify those four areas—the positives and the negatives—in order to grow your business and/or used as personal development. In each section you write a few bullet points in those areas describing your values, the things you want to improve etc.

What are your strengths? How can you use them to your advantage when faced with adversity? How can you develop a system that will remind you to draw upon those strengths in those times of uncertainty? What areas in your development or your business aren’t strong enough (weaknesses)? What changes need to be made? What are opportunities for growth and expansion? Lastly, how do you determine threats? From a business standpoint you can measure your successes and failures via your competitors. If you use a S.W.O.T. analysis to measure personal development, a threat could be the shadow aspect of yourself. The fears, rejections, and doubts that hold us back. We should only compare ourselves to ourselves, personally and professionally. Keep this in mind when determining what might be considered a threat.

You have to determine what success means to you. Is it tangible objects? Wealth, status, luxury. Or is it what you value? Such as time, effort, and the like? What’s important to you? What do you want to achieve? Focus on the what and not on the how.

Whether it’s a S.W.O.T. analysis or a metrics of your choosing, collecting the data helps you determine where you were, where you are, and where you want to go.

We’re at the start of a new season—the equinox, a time to plant seeds, to go within.

Plan it. Plot it. Create a strategy. Take action. In doing so, you’re already a success.

Make this last quarter of a CRAZY year, matter.

Be great…the world needs more of that!

~ XO, Gillian