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What is IDEAL?

While generally known as "the most natural process for our development and achieving ambitious goals, IDEAL is also a model for planning success and a lifestyle for self-development and living more meaningfully—at any age.

Who uses IDEAL?

Goal-oriented people
Business owners
Trainers / Consultants / Coaches
Managers & Team leaders
Sales & Marketing pros
Self-improvement zealots
Health & fitness enthusiasts

How can IDEAL be used?

IDEAL guides the planning and effort toward whatever you want to improve, achieve, or become—whether in your life or business.

Increase sales
Improve physical fitness
Lead a team or client to success
Master a skill or expertise
Launch and grow a business
Maximize productivity
Write and publish a book
Earn a degree or professional rank
Increase health and well-being
Advance personal development
Improve professional and personal relationships

Where do I start?

Before applying IDEAL, there are two important pre-planning steps to complete that will support your success:

KNOW YOUR CHARGE

Understand your subject. Many struggle to achieve their goals due to a lack of deep subject knowledge. Gaining clarity helps you determine the right goal for what you want to accomplish.

KNOW YOUR START POINT

Ensure you can meet your goal’s demands. Use the ADAPT model, a self-assessment checklist. This will help you identify the assets and gaps that could impact your success.

IMPORTANT

Apply IDEAL
for personal or business success

INTEND

Know what you will achieve

Think about what success really means to you. Without a clear finish line, your goal can feel vague and your efforts might lose focus. To keep things on track, make sure your goal is actionable. That means it should have two key parts:

A clear success point: It needs to be specific, measurable, or verifiable.
A vision: You should have a strong idea of how and when you'll reach that goal.

Ready to make an impact? Create your actionable goal with IMPACT.

DIRECT

Have a plan, know each step

Your strategy is the key to your success. It all starts with choosing a clear direction—if you need a hand, give CLEAR a try. Without a well-defined strategy, even the best efforts can lose focus.

Here's how to kick things off:

Choose your strategy: (Remember, CLEAR is there if you need guidance.)
Outline your process: Identify the main actions and the supportive steps that will drive your success.
Get prepared: Assess your needs and put together a Prep Checklist.

When you combine these core steps, you create a solid bridge from where you are now to where you want to be.

ENGAGE

Support your efforts

The Engage step tackles your Prep Checklist and RAS (requirements, agents, and safeguards) to ensure you’re ready to be productive. This is where you define exactly how you'll get results. Here’s what you do:

Set your performance standards and schedule: Decide how you’ll measure success and plan your time.
Mark your progress: Establish clear milestones to keep you on track.
Pick your resources: Choose the tools and support you need.
Put safeguards in place: Create measures that protect your progress and promote success.

Every detail here—from your motivation to your focus—plays a role in driving your productivity.

ASSESS

Know where you stand

The Assess step is all about making sure you know what's working and what isn't. It gives you a clear way to verify your progress and validate your plan—so you're never left guessing. Without a solid assessment framework, decisions can become a shot in the dark, putting your success at risk.

Here's what to do:

Identify key questions: Pinpoint the critical issues that need answers.
Set clear criteria: Define how you'll measure progress and results.
Plan your data collection: Decide on the best way to gather and manage performance information.

By uncovering valuable insights from your efforts, you can fine-tune your approach and drive even greater success. Keep an eye out for those SWEET insights along the way!

LEARN

Be able to improve

The Learn step keeps IDEAL evolving, helping you build on what works and make smarter decisions. It takes what you uncover in Assess and turns it into better goals, plans, and strategies—so every effort becomes more effective. While Assess looks at results, Learn focuses on using those insights to keep improving.

Set up ways to collect and organize what you learn.
Find reliable sources to stay informed.
Use tools to spot trends and patterns.
Define clear rules for when to make changes.
Build a system to track and manage improvements.
Schedule regular check-ins to refine the process.

Learn turns experience—good or bad—into growth. Without it, mistakes repeat, and opportunities slip away.

Common Mistakes:

Failing to revise plans: Even when people recognize the need to regularly assess their progress, they often overlook making adjustments when things aren’t going as planned.

Overlooking external factors: Success isn’t entirely within one's control. Some people forget to consider external factors—like timing, support, or circumstances—that could influence their ability to succeed.

Inconsistent effort: Even when individuals understand the value of consistent effort, they often struggle to maintain it over time, especially when faced with setbacks.

Failure to improve: While it's natural to want to change course when things go wrong, making adjustments without confirming their effectiveness can create more problems and waste effort.

Advice:

Many people fail to reach their goals for this simple fact: there's a difference between having a goal and understanding how to achieve it. Improve your ability to succeed with this checklist:

Know what your success requires
Identify assets and liabilities
Prepare for potential obstacles (how you could fail!)
Set an actionable goal (go beyond SMART goals)
Safeguard your productivity
Support your plan
Learn how to sustain motivation
Ensure your ability to improve: apply IDEAL

Learn how to apply and benefit from IDEAL, the most natural process for improvement and success.

GET STARTED

Success is not incidental; it results from deliberate effort. Get started: complete this success-planning checklist:

Define your success
Know how your success is possible
Assess your start point
Establish a process ("How")
Set performance standards
Establish productivity safeguards
Prepare and engage
Assess and discover how to improve

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Need to know

Subject Knowledge

In order to achieve success, you must have knowledge about the subject related to your goal (e.g., losing weight, starting a business, mastering a skill, etc.). As you consider your goal, ask yourself:

What assumptions am I making?
Are my expectations realistic?
Who/what could help me prepare?
Do I have the skills that I need?
How can I ensure my success?

Get the knowledge you need to achieve your ambitious goal.

Steven Robert Young, Creator of IDEAL.png

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The Steps to Your Success

Would you agree that there's a difference between having a goal and knowing how to achieve its success? And, with regard to your goal, would you agree that knowing how to achieve a goal is as important as knowledge about the subject related to your goal? Of course!

Let's suppose that you have nothing to learn about the subject of your interest. Let's also suppose that you know how to achieve the success you want (you have a plan for your success). You would still fail to achieve your goal, if your actions didn't meet the requirements of your plan.

So, the steps to your success are: (1) make sure that you have sufficient knowledge about the subject related to your goal; (2) acquire knowledge about how to achieve goals; and (3) provide the actions necessary in order to gain targeted results.

Ready to learn how to succeed? Scroll down on this page for support options.

About You

You may be a business owner who is solely responsible for sales, or, perhaps, you're someone who wants to start a business, improve your health or well-being. Maybe you have a financial or career goal, or want to improve your relationships . Whatever your situation, whatever your interest, whatever your current ability, the requirements for your success will always involve knowledge and effort. So, the sooner you get started, and learn how to succeed, the greater your chance for success—sooner!

Next Steps

Regardless of what you know about achieving goals, this fact remains: if you want to succeed, the starting point is to learn what success requires from you. You'll then want to ensure your ability to meet those requirements!

Your next step, then, is to test your knowledge about how to achieve goals... Take a look at the section below.

What You Need to Know

Goals

Once you know the subject related to your goal, you're ready to plan your success with knowledge about how to achieve a goal. There are five essential areas (I.D.E.A.L.):

Intend (your goal)
Direct (the steps to success)
Engage (actual productivity)
Assess (confirmation of progress)
Learn (ability to correct/improve)

Get Answers

The quickest way to answers that are specific to you is to schedule a free consultation. This no obligation call is about your interests, not an effort to sell something. So, write down your questions and get ready for answers!

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The Course!

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