Your Action Plan
92% of people fail to achieve their goals. Despite the popular belief that goals are vital to success, most people rarely make it across the finish line.
There could be many reasons for this. If you regularly set targets but rarely hit them, you may not have leveraged the correct intrinsic or extrinsic motivators. You may also have an underlying fear of failure or success holding you back.
But most likely, it’s because you don’t create strong action plans.
An action plan is your roadmap to achieving your goal. Without one, you risk succumbing to pressures like procrastination or self-doubt that pull you away from reaching your full potential.
Here’s a practical example. You may want to train for an upcoming marathon. You start strong, spending every weeknight on the treadmill. But, due to the excitement, you push too hard and feel sore and tired. So you skip one day, then another. Eventually, enough time elapses that it’s too late to restart. You’re behind in your training and decide not to register.
Training for a marathon is difficult, but that’s not why you failed. Had you created clear action steps, you could have performed more consistently without hurting yourself. In this case, you were the obstacle between you and your goal.
If this example resonates with you, don’t beat yourself up. As I said earlier, most people don’t reach the milestones they set for themselves. But you can beat the odds if you can learn how to make an action plan to achieve your goals. Here’s how.
What’s the purpose of an action plan?
An action plan is a document that lays out the steps or tasks you must complete to achieve a goal. Like an instruction manual, each item builds on the last, inching you toward a finish line.
In the business world, this is a fundamental strategic planning and project management tool that keeps teams on task. You’d assign a team member to each item and give them a clear due date to ensure everyone is working on a specific task to move the project forward.
In your personal life, an action plan can help you meet your goals related to your well-being or self-improvement. But instead of having a team to back you up, you're responsible for completing each item on your own.
It starts with SMART goals
The nature of your goal is the biggest determinant of whether you will reach it. You have to ensure your targets are SMART, meaning they have each of these qualities:
Specific: What does success look like? Make sure you have a clear vision that’s beyond misinterpretation. Instead of, “I want to improve my academic performance,” you can try, “I want to achieve a GPA of 3.5 for two consecutive semesters.”
Measurable: What metric will you use to track progress? In the example above, the GPA achieved over consecutive semesters would be a clear and appropriate measurement. Utilizing academic progress reports and setting up regular meetings with academic advisors could help track progress.
Attainable: Can you reach your goal with your current resources? If you are currently struggling with your coursework and aiming for a 3.5 GPA seems unattainable, consider setting a more realistic target, such as improving your grades by one letter grade in each course.
Relevant: Does your goal fit within your wider life ambitions? Achieving a high GPA may align with your career aspirations or desire for academic excellence. A good reason for this goal might be “to increase my competitiveness for future job opportunities.”
Time-bound: What’s your deadline? You may not be able to achieve a 3.5 GPA immediately, especially if you need to make significant improvements in your study habits or seek additional academic support. Set a reasonable deadline, such as aiming to achieve the desired GPA within the next academic year, allowing time for consistent effort and improvement.
It’s normal to have several SMART goals in your life. You might have a long-term professional goal of becoming a great Doctor and a short-term personal goal of learning an international language. Both are valid, and both benefit from action plans.
Try listing and saving all your goals in one place to constantly remind you what you’re working toward.
What does an action plan look like?
Now that you have your targets, it’s time to take action. Open a document or notebook and prepare to create a step-by-step task list for achieving your goals.
Here’s what to do.
1. Focus on one goal at a time
Taking on too much too fast dooms you to failure. Review your list of goals and choose one to focus on in each area of your life. Try putting your energy into a short-term goal that feels most valuable right now or inch you toward one of your long-term goals.
2. Do your research
Study as much as you can about how to achieve your goal. Read blogs, listen to informative podcasts, and talk to people who have done it before. This will help you define the important steps necessary for hitting your targets.
3. Lay out your steps in a timeline
Armed with the right information, you can start the planning process. The steps of an action plan act as mini goals toward your desired outcome. As SMART goals demand, each item should have the following:
A specific and clear result. If you’re learning a new language, your first step might be to master the basics. Then you can move on to the next step, which is learning more compound sentences. Afterwards, you can learn how to connect them. By the end of your task list, you’ll have achieved multiple concrete outcomes that add up to the whole language.
Clear deadlines. Any good to-do list will have time frames for each item. Look at the deadline of your SMART goal and work backwards from there. Can you reasonably complete each task item between now and then? If not, you may have to extend your deadline to give yourself some breathing room or divide this goal into several smaller ones.
The success of some items may depend on the completion of earlier ones. It’s important to order your to-do list based on what should be completed first and set your deadlines accordingly. You can’t run before you know how to walk.
4. Track your progress
The best part of having an effective action plan involves witnessing your progress. Once you set goals, brainstorm tasks, and put them in a document, print out your list and put it somewhere visible. As you complete each item, tick them off one by one. This helps you feel accomplished with each step.
Alternatively, you could download an app that serves the same function. If you digitize your list of tasks, your smartphone can remind you of key deadlines before you reach them — a useful feature to encourage good time management.
5. Reward yourself
After working diligently toward your end goal, remember to treat yourself. Decide on a reward schedule and stick to it. You could eat your favourite snack after a week of reading for two hours every day.
6. Don’t give up!
Achieving goals is hard work. Creating an action will help you stay motivated, but that doesn’t mean the path will be easy. Sometimes, you’ll want to stay in bed rather than wake up to write another book chapter. It’s important to rest if you need it, but powering through could give you the second wind you need.
See you soon.
Easy step to step guide towards achieving one's goals