Create An Action Plan That Works in 4 Easy Steps!

When it comes to setting goals, most of us could rattle off 5-10 things we’d love to accomplish. And each year, almost everyone makes these goals or resolutions and swears “this is the year things will be different”. But often, by February, most of these goals have been thrown aside because life got in the way.

If you want to accomplish BIG things this year, you will need more than just a goal. You need an ACTION PLAN. But instead of making a plan that makes your goal overwhelming and scary, I am going to encourage you to make a plan that breaks your goal down in small chunks and sets you up for success.

Step #1 Pick Your Goal

If you haven’t had a chance to go through my series on how to create amazing and manageable goals, head over check out parts #1-3 first!

Part #1: Reflection

Part #2: Visualization

Part #3: Goal Setting

The best way to not get overwhelmed with achieving your goals is to not pick too many to tackle at one time. Sometimes we try to do everything as women and what happens is we are doing ‘okay’ at tons of things but feel like we are drowning. I would rather pick 1-3 things to work on and be AMAZING at than just mediocre at everything!

Go through and pick 1-3 of the top goals that you think would leverage the most joy in your life and use them to create your action plan.

Head over and get a goal setting workbook here is you need a jumpstart to create yours!

Step #2 Make Your Timeline

The biggest game-changer in achieving my goals came when I stopped looking at my goals as a one-year goal and brought them into the 12 week year light following the principles laid out in the book The 12 Week Year.

After reading the 12 week year, I realized that if I put a quarterly timeline on my goals I would be more likely to achieve them. How many times have you made a big goal and done nothing to move towards it until you get to the end of the year and start to hustle to make that dream come true? If you look at your goals with a quarterly deadline, you’ll be more likely to push harder to get them done. If you look at each day like a week of the year, you’ll stop putting off the important or even non-important tasks and GET THINGS DONE!

Pick your 1-3 goals and give them a date that is 12 weeks or LESS! Put it on the calendar and make it a date you celebrate because you’ll get things done!

Step #3 Create your 10-minute tasks

Okay, here we GO! Let’s create manageable tasks to complete your goals in just 12 weeks.

Yup.

Those things that you have been putting off for years WILL be accomplished in the next 12 weeks if you are ready to go for it.

As a busy mom, I know how tough it can be to complete your goals with all of the other things you have to do day today. So instead of deciding that you’re going to just get a 3-hour task done each day to move towards your goals, your job is going to be to break it down into tasks that can get done in 10 minutes a day.

Go through the workbook (download below!) and pick the goal you want to focus on. Use the lines below each goal to break down action steps for them. If the goal can’t be done in 10-20 minutes IT IS TOO BIG and you need to break it down more.

For example, say you have a goal to create a scrapbook for your kid’s birthday. Instead of just saying ‘create the book’ you need to break it down. I don’t know how many times I’ve said I was going to do this and don’t even print pictures to get started (do people do that anymore?) What you need to do is BREAK it all down super small and write down each and every step you will need to complete such as;

• Use FREE prints app to order pictures
• Search for coupon code for the album
• Buy photo album
• Organize pictures chronologically
• Space out pictures
• Buy background paper
• Cut background paper
• Assign a picture to paper
• Put pictures in the album
• Buy stickers and other decorations
• Fill in graphs in alum with decorations
• Write in memorable events

And you could probably even break some of these down even further! But see how, when you make them smaller tasks, your goal is MUCH more manageable and less overwhelming. If you take these tasks and pick even just ONE per week, you can accomplish your goal in those 12 weeks by your due date.

Step #4 Assign the items

If you’ve gone through and done the work of breaking down your goals, I don’t want you to stop here! I want you to go to your planner and give each of these items a date to accomplish. Write to them each week in a pen and don’t change them. If you are like me, and you don’t write it down, then you are less likely to actually get it done and completed.

So take your tasks, give them a date, and get started!

If you are ready to get started with your goals, head over and get your workbook now so you can break down all of your goals here! Just drop your email and it’ll be sent right to you to get started!

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