How to Create an Action Plan and Achieve Your Personal Goals

Why it is important to make a plan and how to plan in order to achieve results - read about all this below.

- Do you have a plan, Mr. Fix?
- Yes, I have three plans!

It took me a long time to achieve conscious planning. It always seemed to me that I am the kind of person who is able to keep a ton of information inside my head, plan my day, week and month, set priorities and identify what is important.

In practice, I procrastinated most of the time, since all the information accumulated over a long time gave rise to a feeling of porridge in my head. Of course, I did some things, but I was very far from real results.

In the struggle with a clouded consciousness and a lack of understanding of where to run and what to grab onto, I wrote down all the things that were spinning in my head. Everything I have to do or want to do. A list on a piece of paper somehow miraculously changed everything. This is how my story of making plans began.

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Define your "why"

Here's a quick experiment you can try right now: Think about the goals you set earlier. Now think about the goals you have achieved and the ones you have not achieved.

The goals you achieved had a purpose. Those goals that you failed to achieve had no purpose. In other words, you knew what motivated you to do them.

Simon Sinek, author of Find Your Why: A Practical Guide to Finding Purpose for You and Your Team, explains:

“Once you understand your WHY, you will be able to clearly articulate what makes you feel fulfilled and better understand what drives your behavior when you are in your natural best state. When you can do this, you will have a guideline for everything you do in the future.”

This, in turn, allows for better decision making and clearer choices. Sinek says:

“You will be able to make more informed choices for your business, your career and your life. You will be able to inspire others to buy from you, work with you and join your cause.”

Before you start creating an action plan, think about why you are setting a new goal. This will help you move forward on this journey and give you a North Star for when things get tough (which they inevitably will).

Planning for self-realization

The Self-Realization method described a fairly simple and visual method for drawing up a plan for self-realization. But this method does not sufficiently minimize the uncertainty of this complex plan and increase the success and efficiency of achieving the goal of life.

To make the self-realization plan the most detailed, clear and understandable, you can combine the previously described methods into the following self-realization planning method.

1. Clearly formulate your personal purpose and purpose in life, determine why they are important, what useful things they will bring, and what values they will create in life. This is described in detail in the product Book “Personal Development as a System. Part two. Awareness".

2. Make a list of main, specific results

, which will be obtained through self-realization.

3. For the purpose of life and results, you need to determine indicators

, by which it will be possible to understand that they have been achieved. Determine their current values and set the desired ones. And in the process of self-realization, monitor these main indicators and note their changes.

4. For each result, define a hierarchy

strategic, tactical and operational goals and materialize them, for example, in the form of a tree or a mental map. Read more about this in the Materialization of Ideas method. Mental maps.

5. For strategic and tactical goals, make a list of possible things to do that will allow you to achieve them. Determine their priority, approximate duration and sequence. That is, create a strategy

6. For operational purposes, make a list of necessary things to do

, determine their priorities and the connections between them, for example, using a network diagram or Gantt chart.

7. Determine the critical path

each plan. Conduct research and find ways to minimize this path, for example, delegate tasks, eliminate the most useless ones, introduce new technologies to minimize the duration of tasks, etc.

8. Taking into account operational plans and their alternatives, a daily plan

and implement it.

update several times a day

daily plans, several times a week - operational, a month - tactical, and a year - strategic plans, main results and life goals.

Drawing up a self-realization plan for the first time may require quite a lot of personal time, perhaps even several days. It will take a lot, but much less time, to update all the information. But all these costs are compensated

minimizing the uncertainty of the self-realization process. Consequently, there will be less stress and fears, the path to the goal of life will become clearer, understandable and comfortable. And achieving all your goals will become more successful, effective and enjoyable.

To minimize labor intensity

After all these steps, you can use computer programs and services. But, unfortunately, there is not yet a full-fledged tool for drawing up a self-realization plan in one place.

One suitable option is the Personal Goals online service. It fully implements the capabilities for compiling lists of goals and to-dos, setting reminders for urgent matters, forming a hierarchy of goals, drawing up plans and monitoring their implementation.

Write down your goal

Now that you have a goal, it's time to get it out of your head and onto a piece of paper. While you can also do this electronically using an app, research has shown that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goal if it is written down.

The reason is how the brain works. When you physically write down a goal, you access the left side of the brain, which is literally the logical side. As a result, this tells your brain that you are serious about doing this. It will even encourage you to open your subconscious so that you can develop ideas to achieve your goal.

How to Develop an Effective Action Plan

Many people underestimate the importance of making plans for all occasions. The notorious impromptu, which is often a consequence of laziness, seems much more interesting to them than a piece of paper on which it is written what to do and how.

But a limited view of the plan is not uncommon. It seems to limit freedom and make life boring. Is it so? Most leaders and simply successful people clearly plan their days. Can they be called slaves of time if an ordinary person lives without bothering to make lists?

Before we give tips on how to develop an action plan, let's find out why you need one in the first place.

Why do you need an action plan?

Many people wander through life aimlessly without a clear plan of action, and then wonder where their time goes and why they can't achieve their goals. There are several reasons why you need a clear and understandable plan.

It will help you prioritize

If you don't know how or don't want to prioritize, your boss, friends or family will do it for you. This is why an action plan is so important: it will show you what you need to allocate time to first.

It plays the role of a filter that helps filter out unnecessary

Every day you receive dozens of requests from different people or find yourself in circumstances that require clear answers. Saying “yes” will result in simply not having enough time to do other things. The action plan will become a kind of filter that will instantly allow you to filter out what is not worth the effort.

It will help maintain balance

How often have you, while going about your daily routine, realized that you are spending too little time on important areas of your life? How often has a lack of attention to health led to the need to invest significant amounts of money in it? Having an action plan (even for a month) will allow you to decide in advance which areas need time and when.

By following a plan, you will always know when you are already scheduled to go to the gym that week.

It will allow you to devote more time to self-development

Self-development is one of the priorities of modern man. Thanks to it, you can learn to communicate with people, improve cognitive skills, and improve creative and critical thinking. All this will provide new opportunities or, in financial terms, bring additional income.

If you don’t plan time for self-development, then try to do it at least sometimes. Read and comprehend more, do not stop growing.

It helps you look into the future

For many, the future seems dark and foggy, but only because they don't know where they will be in a few months. The action plan will show, if not the final destination, then at least indicate the right direction.

It reduces stress levels

It's no secret that stress and tension most often arise when a person is under time pressure. When he works, he worries that he will be left without rest, and when he rests, he gnaws at himself with thoughts that he could work.

A clear action plan will show you when to work and when to rest. Just by looking at it, you can calm down and stop worrying. Everything's under control.

It will take away your regrets

Do you often regret that life is going in the wrong direction? If this is the case, then it is only because they have not thought through what exactly they need to allocate their time to.

When you clearly know what you are doing and why, you get rid of regrets. The main thing is to know that you are doing everything right and making every effort.

With an action plan, life will not be as boring as it may seem. It will not become predictable, but only manageable. Conduct an experiment on yourself, make a plan using our tips and try to stick to it for several months.

But you shouldn’t start writing an action plan without a preparatory stage. The more seriously you take it, the better the results will be.

Preparatory stage

Every person has goals, even if they are not written down on paper and an action plan is not drawn up. In this case, we usually rely on chance and our ingenuity. However, it turns out that this is not enough: you need to learn not to be distracted, do one thing at a time and work hard. All this seems boring to such people and does not require attention.

Ambitious people also set goals, but they know that the higher the goal, the more important it becomes to create an action plan. If in order to go to the store and buy a light bulb, you don’t need much planning, then for global things it is necessary.

Why is the preparatory stage needed? Isn't it more effective to simply write down a list of monthly goals and write down step-by-step instructions for each of them? Sometimes this is indeed the way out, but if we want to achieve great success, then we need to do serious preliminary work: learn a lot about ourselves and our psyche, identify our values, clarify our goals, and much more. Just sitting down and writing a plan on your knee in a couple of minutes is not an option. This approach can only make the situation worse.

Let's try to start with a small goal and create an action plan for it. What would you like to achieve in, say, a month? Once you have found the answer, ask yourself the following questions:

Can I start working on my goal right now? How?
Can I work on it both short term (week) and long term (month)?
Is this goal completely under my control?
What factors are under my control?
What factors are beyond my control?
What should I do to get them under control?
Can other people help me?
What can I offer them in return for their help?
How will I know that I am moving towards my goal in the right direction?
How will I measure my progress?
How will I know that I have achieved my goal?

Remember that this is just a preparatory stage, sketches that are necessary in order to draw up an effective action plan after some time.

A plan is something measurable that gives you direction. And that's exactly what these questions provide. Without them, there is a high chance that you will stumble at the first obstacle and lose all motivation.

Yes, things can also go wrong with the plan. There will definitely be problems and failures along the way. Therefore it must be flexible . This means that every step must potentially have an alternative option. It doesn't really matter what you do as long as it makes sense in the moment. Therefore, if now you cannot get through to the right person, you are doing other things related to the main goal.

The plan must be consistent with your personal standards, values, and beliefs. There's no point in creating a plan you don't believe in.

It is important to remind yourself that any action plan requires something from you. For example, so that you make certain sacrifices, invest effort, refuse idle pastime, change the habits and thinking patterns of another. This should be taken into account in advance.

For example, if you want to create an action plan for self-development, then it is necessary that experience, skills and knowledge be combined with the actions that you will take. There may not be much point in reading articles about how to interview for your dream job if you don’t yet have the appropriate skills for it. Instead, it is better to learn critical, logical and creative thinking to build a good foundation. Move gradually, do not create gaps in knowledge.

How to Develop an Effective Action Plan

Once the preparatory phase is complete, there are still a few steps left to take before you create your action plan.

Clarify your goals

You've already chosen one small goal and asked a series of questions to find out what challenges you might face and how to overcome them.

Now it's time to write down all your goals for the year. Take your time and take as much time as you need. It is not necessary to write down the smallest ones, choose 4-5 most important ones.

Your goal should be in complete harmony with your personality: beliefs, values, lifestyle.

But how can you accurately understand whether you need a specific goal? Of course, with the help of the right questions:

What goal would I like to achieve?
What are my priorities and values in life?
Does this goal suit my personality?
Does it fit my current lifestyle?
Will my current image serve my purpose or hinder it?
Does this goal meet my personal standards?
Does this goal conflict with my other goals?
Does it match my expectations?
Is the goal realistic and achievable? Do I have any doubts about this?
Is it consistent with my life's purpose?
Is she congruent with the person I aspire to become?

Some people spend a lot of time pursuing a goal that doesn't suit them at all. They get unnecessary specialties, learn a language they don’t plan to speak, and do things they don’t believe in. It is better to learn from their experiences rather than from your own, because life passes mercilessly.

Find out what the result is and what tools you need

Clarifying your goals is the first step, but now you need to figure out what outcome you want to achieve.

So you have a goal. It is located on the top of a high mountain and is covered in thick fog. There is no understanding yet of how to get there. You can jump up right now, but you don’t have the necessary resources and tools. This approach can be extremely dangerous. One false step will make all the work go down the drain.

To gain a clear understanding of this “mountain”, you need to complete three tasks.

Task one: visualization of the future

This is a well-known technique whereby you imagine that you have already achieved your goal. The more details, the better: what does it smell like, what it looks like, what it smells like, what it feels like, and what it tastes like? You need to believe with every fiber of your soul that you have just achieved your goal and are in a victorious state.

To help you move into and believe in the future, answer the following questions:

What goal have I achieved?
Where I am?
Who's nearby?
What do I see and hear?
What am I thinking?
What do I feel?
What exactly am I doing?
What should I do?

This is nice because you don’t have to bother yourself yet with how exactly you achieved this goal and what difficulties you overcame. Enjoy this state and let your emotions consume you.

Task two: reverse process

The reverse process will allow you to develop a reliable action plan that will help you achieve victory and achieve your goal.

Take a step back and ask yourself:

What was the last step I took before reaching this goal?
What exactly did I do and what was I thinking about when I took this step?
Did I use any resources or tools for this?
Why did I take this particular step?
Did I encounter any problems while taking this step? If so, which ones exactly?

Take another step back. Ask yourself:

What was my second to last step?
What was the step I took before the second to last one? (third from end)
What was the fourth step from the end?

Keep doing this until you get to the present moment. Why does this technique work? Not only were you at the top, but you also cleared away the fog that surrounds it. You have mentally prepared for a long journey and have experienced some important emotions. From an abstract goal it turned into a very real and achievable one.

Task three: environmental analysis process

This is a coaching term used to test the likely consequences of change. In other words, you must figure out what effect achieving this goal will have in your life.

As you complete this task, consider both the positive and negative outcomes of achieving the goal. Also think about the time and effort that may be required and how this will affect other areas of your life.

Ask yourself:

Who will be affected by the results of me achieving my goal?
Could they get hurt?
What must I sacrifice to achieve my goal?
How much time will I be forced to sacrifice? What resources? By what efforts?
How will achieving my goal affect the roles I play in my life? For my other goals? On priorities?
What adjustments will I be forced to make in my life?
What will be the negative and positive consequences?
Given all my answers, do I really want to achieve this goal?

In some cases, you may indeed decide that the game is not worth the trouble, and the number of victims and time spent is too much.

Define your limitations

All of us have limitations in the form of time, effort, energy, money, knowledge, experience and much more. It is important to identify them and admit it to yourself. For example, people often believe that there are 48 hours in a day, and then suddenly it turns out that there are 24, and they also need to sleep.

Ask yourself:

What are the time limits that I can devote to achieving my goal?
What knowledge and experience do I lack?
How motivated am I? How disciplined?
Will I have enough money to finish the job?
What other restrictions exist?

Remember that the best plan is a realistic one. And the more honest the answers are, the more effective it will be.

However, smart people know how to work around restrictions. They are aware of them, but at the same time they look for chances to achieve their goals in other ways. Ask yourself:

How can I overcome these limitations?
How can I get the necessary knowledge?
Where can I find motivation and inspiration?
How can I improve my physical and mental endurance?
How can I get an extra few hours?
How can I reduce my costs?
Where can I get the money I need to achieve my goal?
How can I make the most of my time?
What people can help me?

The more time you devote to these questions, the more confident you will be: there is always a way out. You just have to rack your brain a little and it turns out that the world is full of opportunities, and almost any limitation can be turned into an advantage.

Form a new worldview

Before and after achieving a big goal, you are different personalities. Whether you like it or not, you will change in the process. Anyone who doesn’t want this will give up halfway and retreat. Therefore, a change in worldview is necessary.

In order to tirelessly follow your action plan, you need to cultivate a work ethic, discipline, patience, flexibility, perseverance and much more.

For example, discipline is needed to stick to a plan no matter what. Patience - to continue working in the absence of results. Flexibility - to change course when unforeseen circumstances arise. Perseverance - to continue experimenting if previous attempts have failed.

In addition, you need to believe in yourself, despite the fact that this point will most likely not be the case. So remember that self-confidence is the fuel that will help you move forward in difficult situations.

Create a plan

We can start! Select 4-5 most important goals, find out what period they cover, and for each of them create a step-by-step action plan.

Get feedback

Even if everything is going smoothly, constantly monitor your progress and ask yourself the question: “How can I do even better?”

Here are some other questions you might want to ask yourself during the planning process:

What decisions did I make and what actions did I take last week?
What results did I get?
Did I have any achievements? What exactly?
Have I made mistakes? Why?
Have I gotten closer to my goal in the past week?
Do I need to make some adjustments?
What opportunities did I miss? Can this be fixed?
What lessons have I learned?

If something isn't working, don't get discouraged, but ask the right questions that will help you be productive. Feedback will allow you to achieve your goal several times faster.

We wish you good luck!

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We also recommend reading:

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A Guide to Creating a Personal Development Plan
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Key words:1Time management

Set a smart goal

The SMART goal is to use a popular business management system. This is because it makes the goal realistic and achievable. It can also be used as a reference guide for your action plan. Once you've set a SMART goal, you can start brainstorming the steps, tasks, and tools you'll need to make your actions effective.

Specific: You need to have specific ideas about what you want to achieve. First, answer the questions: who, what, where, when and why.

Measurable: To ensure you're achieving your goal, set tangible metrics to measure your progress. Determine how you will collect data.

Achievable: Think about the tools or skills needed to achieve your goal. If you don't have them, figure out how you can achieve them. Can you take an online class? Help from a friend? Watch videos on YouTube?

Related: Why does purpose matter to you? Does it meet other goals? These types of questions can help you determine the true purpose of a goal—and whether it's worth pursuing.

Deadlines: Whether they are daily, weekly or monthly goals, deadlines can motivate us to take action sooner rather than later.

6 surefire ways to get closer to your true purpose in life

Part Two: Find a Solution and Create a Plan

Find several possible solutions to your problem

You can simply write down all the possible options on a piece of paper or use one of the brainstorming techniques. Such, for example, as a mental map. Whatever method you choose, you must consider both possibilities of the problem: your fault and factors beyond your control.

Solving the problem of communicating with a friend in class:

Sit in class as far away from your friends as possible.
Explain to your friends that you are not learning in class and are getting bad grades. So you need to focus on the lesson.
If you are sitting in your assigned seat, ask your teacher to move you to a seat so you can concentrate better.

Solving the problem of unfinished homework due to soccer practice:

Do some of your homework during lunch or during a break. This will leave you with less work to do in the evening.
Stick to a routine. After training you should have dinner and do your homework. Reward yourself by watching TV after you do your homework.

Solving the problem of misunderstanding algebra:

Let a classmate help you, who can clarify all the points that are unclear to you.
Ask your teacher for help. Explain that you do not understand the material and need additional explanation.
Take math classes with a tutor.

Create a plan

So you've brainstormed and figured out what your problem is. Now choose the most effective solutions to the problem in your opinion and write down a plan for yourself. Hang the plan somewhere where you will see it most often. Your plan for improving your math level should look like this:

Improvement plan within four weeks

Tell Katya that I can’t talk to her in class. If this does not help, then move away from her.
Do homework every Tuesday and Thursday during lunch. This will leave me with fewer tasks to do after training.
Attend math elective every Monday and Wednesday. Goal: in four weeks, improve your level from a three to at least a four.

Review your first week

Did you do everything you planned? Have you been successful? What mistakes did you make? By doing a good analysis, you can avoid mistakes in the future.

Prioritize your tasks

Once you've determined your actions, you'll want to review your list and arrange your tasks in the order that works best for you. This way, you start with the most important step to make the biggest impact.

For example, if you have a sedentary job and want to lose weight, the first step should be to become even more active. From there you can add more time to your training plan. The next step may be to change your diet, such as eating a salad before lunch to avoid overeating, or replacing soda with plain water.

Planning results

To minimize

uncertainty and risks of self-realization, you need to use an orderly approach. To use it you need to plan your activities.

The result of planning is a plan

with a description of possible actions, connections between them, their hierarchy, the sequence of their implementation, possible alternatives and necessary resources. The plan is materialized in a convenient and understandable format, detailed and systematized so that it can be easily used to complete tasks, updated and search for the necessary information in it.

Drawing up a plan in itself minimizes the uncertainty of achieving the goal, because an image is created in the mind

possible ways to achieve them, and the most suitable one is selected.

The main result of planning is complete clarity

what needs to be done to achieve success.
This allows you to “hit the target” and minimize costs. And by creating new or introducing existing technologies into activities, you can significantly save fairly limited personal resources. This gives an advantage
over competitors and allows you to obtain additional resources for personal purposes.

Another important result of planning is increased motivation.

. By getting a clear picture of what needs to be done to achieve a goal, you have much more energy to move towards it. And, consequently, the efficiency and quality of activities increases. Then the goals are guaranteed to be achieved and give all the expected results.

By applying planning every day and throughout your activities, life becomes more smooth, calm and comfortable. There will be less fear, stress and negative emotions. Of course, this does not provide complete insurance against unpredictable situations, accidents, force majeure, etc. But at least life will have a clear, correct direction and understanding of why you need to move forward, and most importantly, how.

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Schedule your tasks

Setting a deadline for your goal is imperative; this prevents you from delaying starting your action plan. The key, however, is to be realistic. For example, it is unlikely that you will lose 10 kg in two weeks.

Moreover, you should also set a start and end date for each action step you create, as well as a schedule for when you will complete specific tasks. Adding them to your schedule will ensure that you stay focused on these tasks when they need to happen, without allowing anything else to distract you. For example, if you schedule time to go to the gym, you will not schedule anything else during that time period.

You can use a paper calendar or planner, or an online calendar. You can use it to set deadlines or reminders for when to do each step, and it can be shared with other people who need to be aware (like your partner or mentor).

Continue with healthy habits

Without healthy habits, it will be even more difficult to achieve your goal, even if you have an action plan. You can go to the gym five days a week, but if you eat hamburgers for lunch every day, you're undoing all your hard work.

Let's say your goal is more career-oriented, such as becoming a better speaker. If you rehearse your speeches at Toastmasters meetings but avoid situations where you need to be unrehearsed—like networking or community meetings—you're not helping yourself.

You have to think about what will help transform you into the person you want to be, not just what is easiest or most convenient when you complete your projects.

Cross off completed items

You may think you've spent a lot of time creating lists. Not only do they help make your goals a reality, but lists also help organize your action plan, create a sense of urgency, and give you a way to track your progress. Because lists provide structure, they reduce anxiety—you know exactly what to do and when to do it.

There is something else special about the lists. When you cross a task off your action plan, your brain releases dopamine. This reward makes you feel good and you will want to repeat that feeling.

Review and reset settings if necessary.

Achieving any personal goal is a process. While it would be great if you could achieve your goal overnight, it takes time. Along the way, you may encounter failures. Instead of getting frustrated and giving up, schedule frequent reviews—daily, weekly, or monthly—to see how you're progressing.

If you don't end up where you expected, you may have to change your plan of action. Rework it so that you can achieve your goal.