Our Relationships Deserve a Strategic Plan

The people in our lives can make or break our happiness and our success. Without strong healthy and enjoyable relationships, both personal and professional, we are at risk of being very unhappy, very alone and potentially, missing out on a professional opportunity.

I have had a very storied career over the past years. As a serial entrepreneur, I realized very early on that I could never do it alone and that the key to success was all about the people around me. Many of my ventures involved a partner. Many of the big steps I took in life involved an advisor, coach, mentor or close friend.  Many of the products or businesses that I have built involved a team of dedicated people. All of these relationships required dedicated focused attention throughout that phase of my life and, very often, for years afterwards.

The problem with many of us, is that we ignore the importance of these relationships in our lives and just take them for granted. We don’t spend time nurturing new relationships and we spend very little time thinking about the future of our current relationships.

Professional or personal, our relationships deserve and, very often, will benefit from a prioritization process, a good old SWAT analysis and then a strategic plan:

• think about the relationships in your life, prioritize them in terms of importance at this time and pick one or two
• look at their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (yes, a SWOT analysis on a relationship!)
• establish a goal for each
• set up a plan to meet those goals 

Young or old, we should all recognize the importance of each and every relationship in our lives and look after them.  

My challenge to you today… think about the relationships in your life, prioritize them in terms of importance at this time, pick one, do your SWAT analysis, make a plan and call them.