What are your dreams for 2008?  Are you dreaming of increasing your income?  Possibly, buying a home or a new car?  Is your dream to become the top producer in your office or maybe even your company?  Perhaps it’s a promotion or a new job? 

Dreams are what keep us going.  Having dreams is a key to staying motivated, to staying sharp, to staying alive. 

Yet, those same dreams that excite and motivate can turn into killers of the spirit.  They can destroy our motivation and will just as easily as they can drive them.
 

Dreams without plans are just that—daydreams.  Wishful thinking.  Hoping for a miracle.  Wanting without working. 

Turning dreams into reality is difficult, for in order to become reality they have to backed up with sweat and wisdom.  They have to be taken from the dream stage to the real world where things don’t go as smoothly as they did in our dreams.  Where obstacles must be overcome.  Where disappoint waits.  Where failure is lurking. 

For many of us, the fear of failing to reach our dreams keeps us from pursuing them.  We find it easier to dream and hope rather than trying to turn them into reality because if we try, we may fail.   

But we do have a choice.  We can simply daydream about what we’d like to have happen, or we can turn those dreams into reality. 

It is our choice.  We don’t have to settle for simply dreaming. 

And now is the time to begin turning your 2008 dreams into reality.  The new year is literally just around the corner.  In less than three weeks you’ll be racking up 2008 sales—or making excuses as to why the sales aren’t there. 

Actually, you should have started your 2008 planning months ago.  But it isn’t too late.  As a matter of fact, it is NEVER TOO LATE to change your future, to turn your dreams into reality. 

Take the next weeks and create a detailed, realistic plan to turn those dreams into reality.  Examine your past year to see what went right and what didn’t.  Take the lessons you learn and apply them to your planning for next year:

• What did you do right that brought in new customers?
• What did you try that didn’t work?
• What group of prospects do you seem to work best with?  Which did you not do well with?
• Where did you spend your time, money and effort?
  • Which of these activities weren’t worth the time and effort?
  • Which were productive that you should be doing more of?
• How can you take those things that worked and do more of them?
• Where can you find more prospects like the ones you connected with?
• What products or services did you sell?  Which ones did you find difficult to sell?
• What are your personal strengths?  Your weaknesses?
  • How can you take advantage of your strengths?
  • How can you minimize your weaknesses?

Ask yourself these and many other questions like them.  Don’t guess about the answers.  Examine your past year’s sales history and find the real answers.  The answers to the questions of what you did right and what you did wrong are in your history.  If you know your history, you can change your future. 

Then, once you have your answers, plan your activities for 2008.  Concentrate on those activities that make money—prospecting, selling, and building relationships with your prospects and clients.  Find ways to eliminate the busy work—all of the day-to-day ‘stuff’ you do that isn’t income producing such as shuffling files, hanging with the other salespeople, spending hours trying to design that perfect flier. 

Once you’ve discovered your strengths and what has produced results in the past and then created a detailed plan for 2008 that takes advantage of those things and minimizes the rest, dedicate yourself to putting the plan into action. 

Realistic, careful, focused planning followed by massive action implementing the planning creates success.  Action without planning is simply being busy for the sake of being busy.  It accomplishes nothing.  Planning without action is daydreaming.  You must marry the one to the other. 

2008 doesn’t have to be just another disappointing year.  It can be YOUR year.  But unless you know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there, you’ll be sitting where you are a year from now, daydreaming about next year.