The journey of any successful execution begins with strategy planning. This component is important as it comes before taking any action.

This planning component needs to consider all issues ranging from the big and small steps the company needs to take to get to its goals, the framework they will use to keep on track along with the structure for strategy reporting and the frequency of strategy meetings.

If you look at it historically, corporate history is littered with businesses that experienced immense growth stalls only because they followed strategies built on wrong assumptions or a need of clarity.

The goal of successful strategic planning is to come up with a strategy that defines clear goals, while staying away from misaligned or ambiguous ones.

For personal goals, you still need to plan ahead, but perhaps in a different way. Say you would like to volunteer more in the upcoming year. This will require you to schedule the days and hours you would like to donate, the type of volunteer work you are interested in and any travelling to and from the location.

You need to plan this out in advance so it does not clash with your regular work-life balance and create a scenario where you are left feeling overwhelmed and unable to continue with your commitment.