You want to take action to reach your goals? Well, I have good news for you because it is not as difficult as it seems to be. The only thing you need to do is following a plan. Now is the big question, how to plan to achieve your goals? Let’s first dive into why you need to plan in order to reach your goals. I’ll show you a powerful framework that is generally used for goal-setting: SMART. Starting with this framework, we elaborate further on making an effective action plan with all the tips you need to efficiently reach those goals. Lastly, I’ll tell you how you can use your daily planner along this whole process.
Get ready to Plan and achieve your Goals.
Why You Need To Plan To Achieve Your Goals
Just having those goals floating somewhere in your head and not taking adequate action, will lead you to nowhere. I call those thoughts “dreams”. It’s time to work towards those dreams, translate them into goals and make them come true.
The power of writing things down: Focus, Clarity and Motivation
Multiple studies show that writing your goals down increases the chance of actually achieving them. For example, a study by Gail Matthews, provides empirical evidence that people writing their goals down are 33% more likely to achieve those goals.
There are multiple Positive Effects resulting from writing your goals down:
- First of all, you get it out of your head. Your mind is not a place to store ideas. Writing your ideas and goals down, will empty your mind and actually make room to Focus on accomplishing them.
- This leads me to my second point, Clarity. As you can see your goals in front of you, together with the action plan that you have created, it is clear what path to follow and easier to actually get to the finish.
- Lastly, along the way, you have to keep your Motivation up. By reflecting on yourself and documenting your progress, you’ll feel that little push to keep on going and make even more progress.
A General Framework For Achieving Goals: SMART
SMART is a goal-setting framework that is commonly used. It states that a goal needs to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. We will take this starting point into account when creating our action plan in the next step.
Specific
Stating specifically WHAT your goal is, is the very first step. You need to be clear on where you want to go before you actually go there. It is obvious you won’t be able to reach the finish when you don’t know exactly where it is.
Another crucial aspect to take into account is HOW you are going to work towards your goal. What steps are you going to take to climb your way up?
Measurable
As reflection is one of the most important factors for tracking where you are heading and to stay motivated, we need a TOOL to make this reflection process effective. Stating how you are going to measure upfront can help you keep your focus on the things that matter. Just reflecting without a measurable direction can result in focusing on the wrong things or not reflecting thoroughly enough.
Attainable
Ask yourself the question ‘Do I Truly Believe I Can Achieve This Goal?’. When the answer is no, you won’t get there. The chance is high you will give up along the way, just because you don’t believe you can do it. You have to believe that you are able to actually get to the finish. Keep in mind that a goal might seem not feasible at first sight. However, there are tricks to overcome this way of thinking. Breaking a big goal or task down into multiple smaller steps and allowing enough space and time for yourself to get there are important factors to take into account. Other things that can help you make it attainable and boost your confidence is doing research or learning new skills. Work on your mindset before you start the process because YOU have to believe that YOU are capable.
Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean you have to pick goals that are too easy. A challenge will be a driving force for you to move forward. So avoid getting bored or having too much time to lounge around.
Dream big and take steps to make yourself Capable.
Relevant
This is the WHY section. Think about why you want to achieve this goal. More specifically, why is it important or valuable to you? In case there is no (genuine) value, you can better focus on something else that really does matter to you. It would be a pity that you would stop working towards a goal because you realize in the middle of the process that it is not relevant for you, after spending all that time and effort on it. Not to be neglected, knowing why you find it important, is necessary to keep the motivation up along the process.
Time-bound
We need to know by WHEN we want to achieve this goal. Otherwise, we risk delaying taking effective action, resulting in never getting there. Once you have the feeling you are not getting forward, you’re vulnerable to giving up. So you need deadlines along the way that will guide you towards the ultimate deadline.
The Full Action Plan To Achieve Goals: Step By Step
Now it’s the time to learn how to create an action plan to achieve your goals. Let’s go through it step by step.
Preparation
1. Make your goals SMART
Now that we know what SMART Goals are, we can start drawing our action plan within this framework. However, as easy as the acronym is to remember, I would fill in the framework in another sequence.
Start with thinking about What, Why and How, in this order.
- What is my goal?
- Why is this goal important/valuable?
- How am I going to achieve this goal? What steps am I going to take?
Next, think about Attainability. Now that you already broke down the end goal into various steps, you have a better view on the fact if you are capable of doing it. If not, go back to that last step and break it down in even smaller steps until it looks attainable for you. Keep in mind you can include doing research and learning new skills to succeed.
Finally, think broadly about When you want to get to the finish. How many weeks, months or years are you willing to allow yourself to reach your goal? In addition, think about what the possibilities are to reflect and clearly Measure your progress along the way.
2. Write it down
By now it should be clear that your chances of achieving your goal are way higher when you write it down. Not only your goal itself but also the action plan as your guidance to get there. Start by writing down if your Goals are SMART. Only then go to the next step.
3. Establish Touchpoints
Okay, in our SMART framework, we have already thought about both when we want to have reached the goal, and what steps we are going to take to get there. It’s time to lay this out clearly:
- Write down the Tasks you need to do, to climb the ladder towards your goal.
- Assign how much Time you need for each of these particular tasks.
- Establish Deadlines for Every Single Step you have written down. Base this on the accumulated time of the tasks included in this step.
- Make a Timetable to clearly visualize what process you are going to follow.
Building up an action plan truly offers you a clear view on the amount of time you need to anticipate for reaching your goal and how to plan your time management along the way. Keep in mind that assigning time to tasks is not the easiest thing to do and it might be that your estimations are not a 100% correct. Don’t put too much emphasis on getting this immediately perfect. During the action part, there will be room to adjust this timetable after reflecting, in case you see the schedule is not attainable based on the time you took for the previous steps. Only practice makes perfect.
4. Identify and Tackle Obstacles
We need to minimize the chances of giving up along the way. As preparation is key, we can better prepare thoroughly and already eliminate obvious obstacles. So think about what your weak points are, what events that can compromise or complicate your path towards success. Once you have identified these, the next step is to think about solutions on how to overcome these obstacles. Don’t forget to write these thoughts down too.
There might be obstacles that come up during the action part, that you didn’t know beforehand. However, tackling the obvious ones upfront will make you more resilient and able to fix other upcoming problems.
5. Do Your Research (if needed)
Do you have the skills and knowledge to achieve your goal? Carry out your research before you begin, to give yourself a head start. You can implement this part in your timetable plan if you like. Since this might be important for you to succeed, I recommend doing this.
6. Make it Visible
Now, we have made our plan. You can do one more small thing to increase your chances of success. Make sure you will be reminded what The Ultimate Goal is. This will help you to keep focus on the right thing and push through. You can be creative with this. Take a Post-It and hang it on your bathroom mirror so your goal is brought to your mind every day. You can also use your phone for example. Put your goal or a reference to it on the background, or install notifications that come up from time to time.
Take Action and Push Through
7. Take The First Step
By now, we have a clear plan, created incentives, taken out possible obstacles and are clear on which directions to go. The next important step is taking that first step. This is where the power of marginal improvement comes in. Even when you broke down your goal into multiple steps, it might still seem like you have a long way to go. This doesn’t matter at this point, you just have to take that first step. When you did, you should and will be proud of yourself. Let this give you a boost to keep the ball rolling, taking the next step.
8. Use Your Daily Planner
Because you have made such a thorough and effective preparation, this part almost becomes child’s play. We can use the timetable to easily put the different tasks in our daily planner. Since your daily planner is your favorite tool to organize, scheduling the tasks will make sure you are taking real action and following your plan.
9. Tell Your Friends
An extra but effective act is telling your friends, a family member or somebody else that is close to you (such as a therapist) about your goal. The same study we talked about before, by Gail Matthews, shows us the positive effect of accountability. People who engage their friends and send them weekly progress reports accomplish significantly more. Other people knowing about what you want to achieve, will give you a push to get to the endgame. I recommend involving people you trust. They can also be a support for you, as in helping you with reflection, giving you direction when you feel stuck or give you an inspirational talk when you need some motivation to keep on moving.
Reflect And Adjust
Reflecting: Track Your Progress
In the preparation part, we elaborated on making a measurable reflection tool. After every week, step and touchpoint, you can reflect and adjust where needed. Use your daily planner or another notebook to write down these reflections. Make sure you can retrieve them easily. Learning from the past will help you to be more efficiently in the future. It can also be a motivation to look at what you have already accomplished during previous tasks. Even if you didn’t score well, let it be a motivation to do better next week. So either way, this reviewing system is your driving force to achieve those goals.
I cannot emphasis enough how important this reviewing part is. Without this, you don’t even know if you are working towards your goal, when you will get there and if you will get there. The lack of this perspective can result in giving up.
Rewarding: Take a Break
Despite it is important for you to take up a challenge in order to stay interested, and work hard to carry out what you’ve planned, it is evenly crucial to avoid a burnout at all times. Don’t go in overdrive and give yourself a bit of breathing space. For example, after you’ve fulfilled a step, think about what you have accomplished, close it off and prepare your mind for the next step. When you have reached a touchpoint, take a few days off as a reward for what you have achieved. Rewarding yourself works positively on your motivation to push through.
Use Your Daily Planner as a Tool
Along the way, you’ll need something to write things down. Think about where you want to write what and keep track of your progress. Some options I suggest are:
- Productivity/Goal-Setting Journals: there are multiple planners or journals on the market with a blueprint for you to prep, take action and reflect in order to reach your goals. Make sure to use one that fits your needs.
- Templates: There are many goal setting templates available including a SMART set up that you can use to plan. Make sure to find a fit for you and next to preparing your plan, to schedule your tasks daily in order to take effective action.
- BuJo (Bullet Journal): as this is the most flexible journal that you can use for just about everything, you can decide to write down your preparation, action plan and review system in this journal. Then translate this into the daily planner part you use.
- Goal-Setting Notebook + Daily Planner (My Personal Favorite): because I find it important to put emphasis on my goals in order to reach them, I keep a separate Notebook where I include the Preparation and the Reflecting/Scoring part. This keeps the view on your goal clear and tracks your journey towards it. For me, it’s my little book of accomplishments which I love to browse through. Next to that, I use my daily planner (which is in my case my BuJo) to copy the tasks from the action plan, and schedule them on a regular basis.
Try out what you think would work best for you. If it doesn’t, try something else. There is definitely an option that fits you. It might just be a process of trial-and-error.
Conclusion
The 3 Big Keys for achieving your goals are Preparation, Action and Reflection, which are equally critical to be successful. We have established in detail all the particular steps to take along this process. Write all the steps down in a notebook, journal or template and plan your tasks in your daily planner to take action, working towards your goals. I would suggest to start off with one goal at a time. If you take too much on your plate, it can be demotivating and negate this whole action plan. Include the extra tips like telling your friends, taking breaks etc. in order to maximize your chance on success.
If you have any questions about this, please leave me a comment below. I have quite some experience on this process and am happy to help you whenever needed!