“What’s the use of running if you are not on the right road.”

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”  – Lewis Carroll

Ah, March.   It’s finally here.  Spring, tulips, sweaters in blue or green and violet.

Maybe you’re seeing red, instead.  All those red marks you’ve made on your calendar, online or otherwise, marked: “Priority!”  “Do this today, or ELSE!” or my personal favorite:  “If you haven’t done [INSERT YOUR OWN HIDEOUS REMINDER] by this date, you have got to be kidding if you think you’re going to meet that deadline.”

Many women over 40 experience the beginning of March as a time to evaluate for better or worse whether we’re on track for what we set out to accomplish back in January.   In fact, if you’re in a business, it’s April that feels like a freight train is headed right for you if you haven’t made first-quarter goals.

If you also feel so overwhelmed that the concept of being “on track” means you’re literally racing on an actual track, running for some version of a commuter train as you gulp your coffee and balance the schlep of your laptop, lunch, extra pair of shoes, hat, gloves and scarves without getting a heel caught in a pothole,  as you wonder out loud if you unplugged the coffee pot/hot-rollers/steam iron or other small appliance that could turn your home and everything in it into a towering inferno, let me assure you that you are not the only one who feels that way.  For me, March is like a 30-day warning for April.  Or, a 30-night warning…

Around three o’clock this morning, sleep not only eluded me but the demons of worry outright smacked any notion of even a fitful sleep right out of my body.  It’s not the first night in the past few months that this has happened.  This time I finally gave up and got up.  I know from experience that the additional hour or so of sleep after all that tossing and turning only makes me feel worse as the day wears on.

What I finally realized in the shinier light of late morning is that over the past two months I have been doing way too many things at the behest or request of other people.  While a lot of those things and people are part of my overall DESIGN for what I really need to accomplish this year, many are not.  What’s worse, I am not focusing during what should be the most productive times of my day on those people and activities that will in fact keep me on track and within my DESIGN that I set for this year’s goals.   So, of course, when my over-active brain should finally shut down at night so I can sleep, my survival instinct kicks in and wakes me up to help me remember all those things that I am really supposed to be doing.  It’s not as if these priorities are not written down; it’s that I somehow have distorted the priority of reactive, seemingly urgent tasks at the expense of the proactive non-urgent but essential activities that will really help me DRIVE my strategy forward.

If you’re facing the same kinds of demons in the middle of the night, or in the middle of an intersection as you speed through a red light and hope the cops are as sleep-deprived as you, join me this month as I write more about why and how to have a DESIGN in mind and in writing, for your personal life, career or other legacy.  A DESIGN helps you see where you want to go; create strategies and tools for how you’re going to get there; and use your right-side intuitive brain as well as your left-side analytical brain to help you envision a destination and set goals to reach it.

DESIGN is the blueprint you need to help you achieve anticipated or intended actions; it’s the charter for your life, your year, your month, your week, your day. Regardless of what you’re Dealing with, or whatever distracting Deals come your way, if you have a concerted DESIGN in place, you can always get back on the right track, literally and figuratively.

Next:  Stop your whining, get DESIGNING!

Though we hope for the best, we must, in fact, PLAN for the worst.  Now more than ever, we ALL need a PLAN.  We all need to create and impose structure, for the long haul as well as short term. We have to anticipate and deal with crises, if we hope to gain some measure of control over our lives, the good and the bad.

Although I had done strategic marketing and planning in corporate America for more than 20 years, and have written ”life plans” for myself for the past 15 years, I went through a crisis in the early 2000s for which I’d never planned.    I was working for companies where my main responsibility was to generate considerable revenue, in addition to managing existing clients and staff.  I was well paid but I was working long hours every day of the week, and during what should have been vacation.  Worse yet, I was 40 pounds overweight.  A dear friend said I  had ”gone off the rails.”  One sleepless night I drew up a plan to stop the chaos.  The cornerstone was to go back to school and earn an MBA.

A former colleague sniffed when I told her my decision, saying that she too might consider doing an MBA at some point - “…like when I retire, and if I didn’t have such a rewarding career.”   As if returning to school to enhance one’s career is something indulgent!  (Meanwhile, her “rewarding career” is in an industry where clients customarily and derisively refer to her and millions like her as “vendors.”)  I know, because it’s where I was when I knew I needed a whole new plan!

In fact, had I not done the MBA (or another rewarding course of study), I surely would have had to retire, which I don’t want to do for a very long time.   Ultimately, the program renewed my confidence,  imbued me with a sense of control, and even bestowed a certain modicum of calm (well, almost).  Most of all, it taught me a whole new way to plan:  why, what, how, when and where – not just for my career, but for my life.  It was not so much “Plan B” but ”Plan; Then, Be.”

Over the past four months, I have met dozens of women over 40 who have lost their jobs, saw their retirement plans vaporize and, like thousands of other Americans, are struggling with demanding priorities.  They swarm workshops, flood chatrooms, and burn hours networking.  They craft and recraft resumes, different ones for different employers.  They respond  to anonymous job postings, and they write long blogs and thoughtful position statements on Linked In, hoping a prospective employer will notice.  They post on social networking sites that have become refuges for job-seekers and career-changers over 40.

Like myself, almost none of these women have the option of saying “I give up.”  And almost none of them want to give up. I  encourage them to draw up a plan (with a significant other, if appropriate) that takes into account what they really want, in addition to what they absolutely need.  A plan that will enable them to anticipate, manage and gain a measure of control – over their lives, their time, their money.  Their way.

Such plans can be as simple or detailed as you need, but they should first emphasize outcomes you want to achieve, and then the outputs to get you there.  Templates for planning are all over the Web, including Google, Microsoft Office, and sites such as www.mindtools.com and www.12manage.com – both of which have so many charts and templates, your eyes will sizzle.

Actually, some of the best plans I’ve ever seen are on one page, can cover up to three years, and list in 3-to-6 month increments (in agenda format), the outcomes or milestones to be reached. From those can be developed 90-day detailed timetables for outputs (the “to-do” list).  So-called “quant” tools like PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and GANTT charts (also called Critical Path  Analysis) can help you take into account sequential requirements and time frames for  activities.  They are extremely helpful for complex planning, especially when you feel so overwhelmed that you literally don’t know what to do first.

Very few people need or want an MBA, but all of us, regardless of our chosen lifestyle, education, careers, or geographies, are managers:  of ourselves, our households, our families, our work.   In the current economy, we’ve had to become even more diligent, more frugal, and more time-sensitive – about everything.  The language of business – strategy, operations, finance and management - has become the language of our very lives.  It might be true that “man plans, God laughs” but without a plan it’s your demons that will get the upper hand.

So, as we sign off this month, we DARE YOU:  Hope for the best, but get a PLAN.  Need help getting started?  Email us: thedareforce@gmail.com.  We’ll get you going!