Some people like to live by the "seat of their pants," and no one would argue that a little spontaneity is great to have in your life. But you do need to plan something at some point, or your life will simply be one reaction after another.

The non-planner will end up taking no proactive action to improve his or her life. The most successful people plan their goals and are motivated to accomplish them. So with that said, everyone needs a master plan.

Do you have one?

A master plan should include long-term goals, short-term goals, and objectives. You may also want to build in some rewards to motivate you to accomplish them. Let's look at each item that should appear in your master plan:

Lifetime goals...

The first things you should include in your master plan are your lifetime, or dream goals. These are goals that you want to do at some point in your life and they shouldn't be dependent on money, time, or skill. For example, if you want to make a six-figure a year online income, write it down so you can visualize it.

Create a long list by finishing this sentence by adding your lifetime goals:

"If I had unlimited money, time and skill, I would want to..."

Short-term and Long-term goals...

Once you have your lifetime goals list, you should break them down into things that you can realistically do in the short-term and in the long-term.

Short-term goals might be anywhere from the present to the next five years. Long-term goals are likely anything five years and beyond. Don't worry yet about how you'll accomplish them; we'll get to that in a moment.

List your goals in order from the things you want to do sooner to the things you want to do later!

Objectives...

Once you have developed your goals, now you need to create objectives for each one. Objectives are the steps that you need to take to reach your goals.

Let's use the example from above... if you want to generate a six-figure online income your objectives would outline the small steps you need to take to reach your short-term goals, such as:

- find someone who is already doing this

- follow their blueprint for success

- allocate $x and at least 1 hour a day to learn

- take the necessary action to make your first sale

- rinse and repeat to make your next sale

Then once you've met your short-term goals you should then develop a new set of objectives to reach your long-term goals.

You might look at this list and say "easier said than done!", but by breaking down all of your goals into smaller objectives it does become easier to do. You now have some small steps to work on to get you to the next level.

Now what does all this have to do with e-business? Simple. For many entrepreneurs, a long term goal might be financial freedom. Building your business might be one of the objectives to reach that goal.

And within that "main" objective of building your business will be the smaller objectives that must be reached to do the building. The more you break down the steps that need to be taken, the easier it will be to reach your goal.