Usually people stop the goal setting process once they’ve written down their goal. You think “There! I’ve done it! And now I’ll just make it happen…” But the truth is that isn’t how these things actually work. In order to achieve your goal, you have to plan out your steps towards success. Sometimes you are able to quickly identify the steps you need to take. Other times you have to be more deliberate with your action planning.

If you want to understand the importance of action planning, think about someone who has a goal of running a marathon. They have a well written SMART goal that says “I will run the 2021 Denver Marathon in under 3½ hours.” This goal is specific, measurable, achievable (depending on the person!), relevant and time-bound. But they can’t just stop there! They’ll never get to the point of being able to run 26.2 miles in under 3½ hours without having a solid step-by-step plan in place. This is where training schedules come into play for them, as well as creating a support system for the day of the race.

The same concept should be applied to your own SMART goal, even if it isn’t running a marathon. Let’s say you want to reduce your credit card debt by 50% in the next 6 months. Your action plan should take into consideration which credit card bill you are going to tackle first, how much you will pay off each month, and what actions you need to take in your budget to ensure you have that amount available each month. Without a solid action plan to pay off the debt, it’s unlikely going to just happen.

If I take my goal of writing 20,000 words in 6 weeks, my action plan will include the following:

• I will write about 500 words per day or 3,500 words per week. (I tend to break steps down by weeks vs. days because some days I’ll write more than others. And I still want to feel successful even if I take a day off.)
• Since it takes me about an hour to write 500 words, I will set aside 1 hour per day dedicated to writing. I also know I do better getting it all out at once rather than breaking it into smaller chunks throughout the day.
• My creativity and motivation seem to be highest in the morning, so I’ll schedule my writing time before lunch.
• I will set my devices to airplane mode and do not disturb so I can focus on the tasks at hand.

These are small, actionable steps that I can take to set myself up for success. I’ve thought about how to pace myself towards my goal, what time of day is best for me, and how to minimize distractions. Your goal might have more or less action steps. It might look more like a schedule where you start off easy and work towards more difficult actions, like you would while training for a marathon. Or it might just be a way to hold yourself accountable to the daily changes you want to make. If you are looking to spend less money, you might have an action plan of only going out to eat once a week or making your coffee at home instead of buying a latte every day.

At the end of this step you should have several actionable steps written out that you can use to keep yourself accountable for tracking towards success. As your work through this you might start to ask “What happens if things get off track?” Well…we’ll talk about that next week when we look closer at anticipating obstacles and contingencies.