You've already put together a long-term plan with short-term goals. This will help you stay on target, and keep you from giving up when the end seems too distant. To make things even more manageable, you can also break short-terms goals into smaller parts. Take academic goals. Say that you want to be a high-school teacher. In the long-term you'll have to go to college for a bachelor's degree in education and maybe take a teaching certification course. In the short-term, though, you can focus on getting good grades and for a mid-term goal being accepted into a teaching program. Athletic goals are similar. In order to be a top swimmer, break things into smaller parts. First, train hard and improve your times and work on your free-style, butterfly, and different strokes. Try to qualify for local or regional swim competitions. Later, as you improve, aspire to state or even national meets. Draw up plans for each substep, plans for each smaller part toward your big plan. Try to keep the big picture in mind and how each part fits into the whole. Step back from time to time to review your goals and your progress toward them. Doing so will help you to maintain focus. You may also find that you need to revise or even to rethink your long-term goals. Things won't always work out as you intend. Stay flexible. For example, just because you weren't able to advance past the state meet as a swimmer does not mean you have failed. Perhaps it opens new doors as a swim instructor, or perhaps that chapter of your life will close. Or, maybe you can change up your training and your diet and try again. People peak at different times in their lives, so maybe the next time around will be your time. Staying open to new experiences and skills will help you stay flexible. Say that you have to take anatomy to get in to your pre-med program. You've never taken anatomy before! Rather than be discouraged and give up, embrace the opportunity to take on a challenge and to learn something new. You might need to make small changes to the long-term plan. While working toward your bachelor's, for example, you might realize that your passion is in pedagogical research rather than teaching. You could aim for graduate school instead of becoming a high school teacher. Breaking down tasks and assessing your progress these are important. But equally important is to recognize and celebrate your successes. Let yourself relish the triumphs, even if they are little. Celebrations will keep you motivated and give you something to anticipate. Treat yourself when you've reached a milestone. For example, celebrate with a day off, an outing to the movies, or by popping open some champagne with your loved ones. Even small gestures of celebration work, boosting your sense of accomplishment, your self-esteem, and your focus. There will be hiccups on the road to your goals, for sure, and you should plan for setbacks. Use failures to your advantage rather than becoming discouraged, though. Learn from mistakes, adjust, and move forward. Setbacks happen to everyone and are very common every day, even the most successful people. Evaluate what happened. Say that you flunked a class in your degree program. Was it because of bad planning, bad preparation, bad execution, or something beyond your control? Figure out what went wrong and why and then try to make the necessary adjustments. Apply what you have learned in the future. Say that you failed "Pedagogy 101" in your teaching program because the material was very hard and very boring. Knowing this, you might reconsider your previous plans to go to graduate school.
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One-sentence summary -- Break down tasks into smaller parts. Track your progress and be willing to adjust. Celebrate success. Anticipate setbacks.

You might submit a business proposal in response to receiving an RFP. Large businesses and government agencies send out RFPs when they need goods or services. For example, a business that is being sued may send RFPs to different law firms, asking them to submit a business proposal. Alternately, the government could send out an RFP when they need to buy supplies of a product. The RFP should contain certain information which you must fully understand before drafting your business proposal. Make sure that you can meet the client's requirements as spelled out in the RFP. For example, if you can't come in under the budget or meet the client's timeline, then you shouldn't submit a proposal. You don't need to submit a business proposal in response to an RFP. Instead, you can reach out to a business you think could use your services. You want your business proposal to respond to the client's actual needs. This means fully understanding the client and clearing up any confusion in the RFP. You should always step into the client's shoes and try to see the problem from their perspective. To help in this process, you should call and get answers to the following: Whether prior attempts were made to address the problem. Why did they fail? What criteria the client will use when evaluating a business proposal. Whether the organization has any concerns. The organization's operating policies. You want to make sure your proposal is consistent with these policies. You want your business proposal to be readable. This means that the font should be in a size and style that the reader is comfortable with. Generally, you can use Times New Roman 12 point. You can also look for sample proposals used in your industry. Type "business proposal sample" and then "your industry" into your favorite search engine. There are also business proposal templates online. Using one can make your business proposal look professional. You should have a title page as the cover to your business proposal. The title page should include the following information: your name your company's name the name of the person you are submitting the proposal to the date you submitted the proposal A business proposal identifies a problem and proposes a solution. Accordingly, you should begin by identifying the client's problem in simple and clear language. Explain why the current situation is a problem for the client. For example, you could write, "Mathis Gyms is in need of Accounting and Payroll Services as the business continues to grow and hires more employees. Currently, all accounting is done by management, which must devote increasing amounts of time to accounting. By outsourcing this task, management can focus on other business priorities, such as marketing and entering new markets." You might need to explain context so that the reader understands the proposal. For example, you may need to identify the following for the reader: If any previous solutions have been attempted and failed. Whether someone asked you to write the business proposal. How you became involved in the project or aware of the problem. Although your business proposal should be written in simple and clear language, there may be terms that you need to define for the reader. Remember that you might submit your business proposal to a purchasing department that understands industry jargon. However, the person who makes the ultimate decision might not be as familiar with industry terms. You can draft the business proposal first and then go through to identify any terms that might be unclear to the reader. Also define terms if you are using them in a unique way. For example, the term "fiscal year" can be defined in many ways, depending on the business. If you have a long business proposal, then you might want to offer an overview of what follows the introduction. You could summarize the parts that follow. For example, you could write, "This business proposal has four parts. After this introduction, we offer the proposed solution, timetable, and an explanation of benefits in Part II. In Part III, we provide an itemized budget and a set of standard contract terms. Finally, in Part IV, we summarize our experience and confirm that our proposed solution is the correct course of conduct."
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One-sentence summary --
Read the Request for Proposal carefully. Ask questions. Format your document. Add a title page. Introduce the problem or business need. Provide context if necessary. Define any key terms. Offer a roadmap for the proposal.