Organized plans and developing your inner potential

A.B. Susanto, Managing partner, Jakarta Consulting Group

Many famous people -- artists, actors, scientists, athletes and celebrities in various fields -- often discover their talent by accident. Some of them realize that they have a certain talent only after achieving success in the related field. On the other hand, quite a number of people blame their talent -- or rather for not having the particular talent -- for their failures.

Not everybody is that lucky to possess a talent of some kind or other, but almost everyone has his or her own specific potential. Therefore, rather than getting frustrated about being talented or not, one should immediately focus on developing his own potential and boost this asset to achieve success in life, including in one's career.

Like any plan, this particular plan to develop your inner potential must include all the relevant strategic steps toward your goal as well as a list of your own strengths and weaknesses, hampering factors plus a contingency plan in anticipation of any mishap or failure.

Next to a well-organized plan and its subsequent implementation and control all the way, there are three other crucial and closely related factors or, more accurately, personal traits that have to be nurtured: passion, persistence and common sense.

Clearly, passion is a kind of fuel that will power your body, mind and soul in executing your plans, give you a fighting spirit and the required stamina throughout the entire process of your efforts.

Persistence, meanwhile, keeps you on a consistent track rather than being trapped in random thoughts or actions. One single clear cut orientation with a deep conviction, so to speak, enables you to view the "horizon" ahead of you in a much better way.

Finally, common sense should be a natural and integrated part of your rational thoughts and actions, meaning plan your actions logically while at the same time fully understanding your capabilities and limitations as well as the kind of people and situation that surround you.

Apart from involving your family, relatives, friends etc. in discussion of your plans, of course it's you who ultimately understands yourself best.

Start your plan by listing as many ideas as possible through one of the simplest methods: brainstorming. Doing this with other people enriches the list and widens the range of possible ways of execution.

Next step is to scrutinize your list and shorten it to the smallest number and most implementable actions, which means deciding "what to do now", "what to do later" and so forth. In this prioritizing process you will be asking yourself all sorts of questions, like what may hinder your plan and why, the level of difficulties and probably the kind of assistance you might need from someone else in developing your inner potential to achieve your desired goals.

Every feedback during planning and implementation will be useful in adjusting and fine tuning your original plan and the subsequent strategy.

During your planning, you must never underestimate your own asset, your past and current capabilities, for example, though you should be fully aware of your own weakness, which, naturally, would take extra efforts on your part to reduce as far as possible. Your astuteness is also required to put to the best use all those people or factors in your environment that might influence or work positively toward your agenda.

All this planning might seem time and energy consuming, however, at the end of the day a sound plan will produce effective results in developing your inner potential. It is only common sense that a well-organized plan -- one of the key elements to success -- will draw a clearer chart of the actions and activities en route to realizing your aspirations.

Worrying less about your talents -- hidden, about-to-emerge or perhaps non-existent -- but focusing more on developing better plans and enhancing your inner potential will certainly reduce the frightful possibility of wandering aimlessly in your career path.