You usually develop intent by starting with a dream. When you have a dream you have wide future concentration. Now you can attempt a personal strategy. This is your narrow future concentration. A typical personal strategy usually includes the following components: imperatives, values, vision, current reality, goals and action plans.
Note your imperatives
Imperatives are those aspects of your life that you would like to prioritize. If you focus on these areas, the rest will most likely fall into place. You use imperatives as the architecture of your personal strategy. Your list of imperatives will possibly include finance or you may call it income or sustainability. They may be relationships or you may call it emotions or even love. Next may be wellbeing or wellness, possibly even health. The list could continue with family, education, friends, sport, spirituality, chronic problems and hobbies. I’m sure you get the idea and can make up your own list of imperatives against which you can plan your personal strategy.
Values and what is valuable
A personal strategy includes reviewing what you regard as valuable; these are usually called 
values. It’s commonly believed that we use values as a moral compass for direction and decision making. It would seem that this can be hazardous of as some people are willing to commit the most horrendous deeds and crimes in defence of their values. Examples can be readily found in gangster cultures and religious extremists.
However, let’s focus on you. Is integrity one of your values? What about fairness, personal responsibility, professionalism or sustainability? The list may be fairly long. Try to hone it down to about five for your personal strategy exercise.
Where did your existing values come from? Did you take them on consciously or subliminally from past incidents, your culture or socialization? It’s widely claimed that values and morals originate from our religious beliefs. This excludes many people who don’t align with religion but lay claim to having integrity based on human norms. Irrelevant of their origins, principles are nuanced as well as individually orientated – one person may value winning at all costs in business or sport, while another may believe that honour resides in doing his or her best regardless of the outcomes. In addition, you may want to adjust some of your values in the light of new facts or learning experiences which illuminate prejudices or problems in the way you think and behave. It’s also a good time to examine and further your understanding of some of the ethical dilemmas that arise in society, sport and the workplace.
Vision and perishing
You have no doubt heard the claim; without vision, we perish. Well, I add; or we waste much time 
and energy instinctively reacting to other people and random events. Your vision is a portrayal of the time determined, preferred future outcomes aligned with your dream. The period should take between three and five years. To create your vision you use your imperatives as architecture, describing the conclusion you feel is possible for each one. When you have all your descriptions you can summarize them into a paragraph or two. If you don’t put enough rational thought into defining these outcomes there is the risk of being trapped in an aimless chase after subliminal and usually elusive results.
Let’s spend a moment reflecting on what’s worth your concentration and effort, and what’s merely a distraction or ‘mental seagull’. There are many people who aren’t selective about the focus of their energies. They strive to be successful at everything they do (even being fiercely competitive in social or familial arenas). Indiscriminate concentration tends to diffuse the effect on things that really matter. My recommendation advises you to identify those areas where it’s important for you to be successful, and concentrate on being fiercely competitive within that selective framework. By devoting your concentrated efforts to the identified areas, not only do you increase the likelihood of success for yourself, you also allow others around you – particularly family and friends – a higher chance of accomplishment.
Research suggests that the way people make choices for the future is different from their immediate decision-making process. For example, when asked to plan snacks for the following week, most people – knowing the long-term benefits of a healthy diet – would opt for better choices such as fruit or nuts but when presented with the same choice in the moment, would take a chocolate bar or fizzy drink. What you need to do is to bring your future intention and present attention into alignment, so that the decisions you make now actively inform your future destination, rather than acting as a diversion.
Current reality
Your current reality is a description of how your life is right now in terms of your imperatives. In the same way as you compiled a vision based on a description of your imperatives at a selected future date, your current reality is a characterization of your strengths and weaknesses relative to your imperatives as of today – warts and all. In business they call this a SWOT analysis. The SWOT acronym represents your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The gap between your vision and your current reality will give you a good idea of the size of the task you have in front of you. This gap can now be broken down into goals.
Goals for a short period
Your goals are detailed, result-oriented statements using vision and current reality as a guide. In your goals you systematically magnify your strengths and reduce your weaknesses. They should be written in the well-known SMART format. In other words, they need to be specific, measurable, agreed upon by your stakeholder community, realistically achievable and time related. This usually means no more than one year.
Action plans
Action plans are those things you mean to do to get you started, to extract yourself from inertia and develop momentum. These are tasks that line up with each goal. For example: phoning someone or making a relevant appointment that will progress a project.
What are the components of a personal strategy? Note your imperative, Values and what is valuable, Vision and perishing, Current reality, Goals for a short period, Action plans?
Dr Steve Harris – Mind Doctor