Now that you have considered your buddy for this, it's time to a powerful exercise that will set you up nicely for the second module. This is a PEST analysis. You may have come across this in business, because normally a PEST analysis is used in analysing your business to form a new strategy. Well, we use it here for your personal strategy. Because, after all, that's exactly what forging success is... it's HOW you are going to achieve your success. One of the important things about preparing to achieve your breakthroughs towards your success is genuinely understanding the impact of the external environment. What is happening in the outside world does have an impact on you. Many of these things, you cannot control. So lets objectively consider them . This will help you shape your future plans with these factors and potential factors in mind. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social and Technological environmental factors. You can also add Legal to this. Why do this? Well, let's consider the political environment in your part of the world. If your goal is to become president or prime minister, then there are obvious implications. But what about the politics at your work? I have worked with many clients whose careers are seemingly stagnating because they simply don't like to "play politics". And the career ladder appears to only be open to a select few. But remember as you consider these factors, to be objective. And think of alternatives that may work around politics that really are there. Economic factors. I think about half of my coaching clients have expressed a desire to be financial independent. A place where they have paid off their debts and can choose to go on an exotic extended holiday or sabbatical or buy a sports car. But what about the global economy? In the past few years we've experienced a long and deep recession across the world. Perhaps your success goal has a risk side from the global, or local economic perspective. Again, we're looking to identify possible issues and opportunities. Social matters. Does your goal fit with the society in which you live? Have you ever felt that you haven't achieved success because, well, "they" weren't ready for it? And technological factors. How does changing technology affect you and your future goals? Let me share my own example. A couple of years ago, I decided that I would publish my book "What's Better Today?" Politics didn't really play a big part for me but it was during the global recession, and people spend less on books and development during a recession. Was society ready for this type of book? How did I need to write it for them? Was it acceptable, workable, publishable? There are some things that changed because I am based in Singapore, getting a book published and to my market in Singapore, that was costly since most publishing is in the US. Technologically, well I could overcome many of the printed publishing barriers because the technology to publish an ebook was there -- and I wanted it to be an ebook. One where you can click on the links to my workbook exercises. But then society, or at least a large part of my normal target market, don't like ebooks. They want a printed copy. To fast forward a little, this PEST process helped me prepare to learn how to publish on kindle, epub and printed versions (and believe me, it is three different processes). For printed, page layout and numbering matters, for kindle, flow of text matters and so on and so forth. Using this structure, you will begin to identify external barriers, potential pitfalls and issues and be thinking of ways to overcome them or get around them as you plan. Oh. And the best part of this exercise. It takes away your excuses. Use the workbook to and coaching game pictures to identify anything that may have a real impact on your success.

• published: 18 Feb 2014
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