A goal is just a wish without action. Having goals is an excellent way to move your life forward. Writing goals down makes you nearly 50% more likely to achieve them But not unless you take action.
Over the last few years, the law of attraction gurus have had their message diluted by the idea that we just need to think about our goals and our bank balance will magically increase. We set up a vision board and we will incredibly find ourselves moving into our dream house. We repeat daily mantras and we will become rich in every part of our lives.
All of this without lifting a finger or putting in an ounce of effort? Seems unlikely to me! Shy of winning the lottery, our bank balances will remain as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard if we sit on our backsides in an attempt to complete Netflix.
For me, the law of attraction gives us the confidence to keep grinding on. It lets us know that success is within our grasp, if we are prepared to put in the work and never give up, and with either luck or a good guide, we can make those changes to our lives.
If you want to find out more about the benefits of setting goals, you might want to check out our post here: 10 crucial reasons why you should set clear life goals.
But now let’s assume that you have set your goals. You know where you ought to be heading and you are clear that these goals will bring vibrancy to your life. Now you need to make a plan. You need to decide your route through this new landscape and make your journey as efficient and as painless as possible.
You might be interested in this related article: How to reach your goals
Now you’ve decided on your Next Few Steps, it is time to take action.
How do you do this? There are a number of ways you can ensure that you take action, so experiment with these and see which ones suit you best.
Some ways to plan in your actions
1. Take action immediately.
Assuming you’ve followed the steps to creating your plan, you now need to take action. You will find this much easier if you have set yourself a step that is very quick to complete.
If your step is small enough, you should just get it done. It might just take 2 minutes. Make that phone call. Fill in that form. Write that email. Find that missing item. Apply for that passport. If the task takes a few moments, you should live by Nike’s motto and ‘Just Do It!’
Obviously, you can get stuck in, if you have the time, even if it takes an hour or two to complete. However, you may not have the time to give to your endeavours.
2. Schedule your task
If you can’t do it now, put it on your calendar. Nothing gets done by accident. You must plan and by carving out some time for you to devote to this task, you are much more likely to get it done.
How you use a calendar is up to you. If you have a digital version, this works brilliantly as you can move items around and still keep it looking neat. However, one trick is to only have one calendar – if you have one work, one social and one personal calendar, it is easy to get double booked without realising it. Or you could go old school analogue and work with a physical calendar.
Whichever calendar type you choose, set this plan in stone. Treat it like a work meeting or a dentist’s appointment. Once the time is allocated, it is sacrosanct. Then you will begin to trust this process.
Just be careful to allocate enough time for the task to be completed, taking into account distractions, interruptions and finding it more difficult than first thought. You might need to schedule extra sessions if you have a complex task to get done.
3. Delegate or outsource
Sometimes our task is too complicated (ie. filling in your tax form) or of low value (like hoovering the house) for us to spend our time on.
Outsourcing is an excellent way to get your complicated financial, legal or other tasks done. This is because unless you are a financial or legal expert, it will likely take hours to dig deeper into the legalities. Despite costing you, employing the services of an expert can actually save you money. Firstly, a task that would take you a day to complete, might be completed by an expert in an hour, leaving you a day to get on with more productive activities. Secondly, the stress of attempting something well above your paygrade is something you could well do without.
Conversely, spending three hours taming your overgrown garden could well be outsourced to someone else, allowing you the time to focus on higher value tasks. So get in a gardener or ask a friend or family member who loves gardening to give you a hand.
4. Delete the task
If you are wanting to be really productive, you must prioritise the most important or urgent jobs on your list. This means being brutal and crossing off all those little jobs that get in the way of your purpose. Does the car really need cleaning weekly? Or can you combine this with a shopping trip and take it to a car wash on the way?
Many of the jobs on our to-do list keep us busy but not productive. How do we decide which tasks to delete? We can use the decision matrix on the deciding on your priorities article to help us make that decision.
5. Identify support
Sometimes we need a little help in completing our steps towards a goal. This is where your support network will help. We have a great article on this that you can check out here: developing a strong support network.
Getting some help from your family, friends, mentors or even people you don’t know – internet gurus, creators of courses, blogs etc.
These people can be invaluable in helping you take those steps towards your goals and you need to take advantage of their expertise, muscle power or companionship to make it more likely that you crush that step.
6. Review and record
Finally, as you go along, it is helpful and motivating to record your journey. Keeping a habit journal where you tick off the progress you have made is an excellent way to keep you on track. However, you should integrate reviews into each step. Ask yourselves these questions:
- How did I get on with completing the task?
- What did I find difficult?
- What did I find easy?
- What did I learn that I could use again?
- How could I use this learning in other areas of my life?
- What did I learn about myself?
- What would I do differently if I had to repeat this task?
- Who could I ask if things went wrong?
- What is my ‘Plan B’ if I find I cannot complete this task?
These questions are important and help you to become the sort of problem solver that gets things done. It is more about self identity and seeing yourself as a competent person.
Using the Action Planner
Now, that you know your goals, we are going to take you through a whistle stop tour of the Action Planning Sheet we use to help us crush our goals.
This process takes the best of recent scientific studies in a simple and effective plan and hopefully you will find it really useful.
- Write in your SMART goal. It starts with you choosing just one of your goals and writing in a smart way at the top. Remember to include a specific (S) goal that you can measure (M), actually achieve (A&R) and that has a deadline (T). For example, you might say you want to lose 20 kgs by the beginning of your summer holiday (eg. 9am 02/08/23)
- Brain Dump Then in the Brain Dump section, get all the steps that you think you might have to complete to achieve your goal. Don’t worry about putting them in any order. Just get them out of your head and onto paper. For example, this could include:
- Buying only healthy foods during the weekly shop
- Walking and eventually jogging for 30 minutes 3 times per week
- Take up squash once a week
- Purchase some weights and do 3 days of muscle work
- Begin fasting after 7.30pm every evening until breakfast
- You get the idea.
3. Daily Habit Then you use James Clear’s idea of developing one daily habit – something you will do without fail every single day. Eg. If you are writing your best-seller, you will write something every day.
4. Commitment Level Box Now you fill in the 4 Levels box. Here you decide what will be your four levels of commitment.
- Level 1 is your Minimum Effective Dose. It is the minimum you could possibly do to reach your goal. In our writing example, you might choose to write 1 word or 1 sentence a day. Remember, this covers the absolute minimum effort you could possibly put in to make a tiny bit of progress.
- Level 2 is a target that you would be able to achieve on a busy day. Perhaps this would be draft 2 paragraphs or just 1 paragraph well-edited paragraph.
- Level 3 is an amount that you could get done in a reasonably quiet day. Perhaps this is writing and editing 500 words.
- Level 4 is the most you could ask of yourself on any day. This might be a chapter drafted or edited.
Now, EVERY DAY, you have to make progress. Some days will be so hectic that you can’t get more than a sentence written. Others you may be able to bust out your Level 4 target. Just make sure you don’t miss even 1 day.
5. Priorities Box Now you know what your daily habit will be to help you reach your goal, there will be other tasks that need to be done that are not covered by this daily routine. Research for your book, getting in contact with your editor, designing your book cover with an illustrator. Take all the items you put in the brain dump that are not covered by the daily habit, and order them in a logical sequence. How you do this is up to you. You might want to start with the task that needs to be done first, the one whose deadline is soonest, the most important or the most intimidating.
6. Timeline Finally, you fill in the timeline. You might decide that your timeline lasts 14 days – so put the dates of the next 2 weeks below the line and the number of the tasks from your priorities box above the line. Now you have sketched out some sort of plan. If you feel you need a month, a week of even 3 months, you can change the dates to suit your project.
This process shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes and will probably be quicker. However, we have found it an efficient way to move from ideas in your head to a tangible plan of action.
Why does this work?
- it relies on writing down your SMART target – a fact that many productivity gurus say is vital to the whole process and increases your chances of succeeding
- It allows you to remove all the ‘stuff in your head’ and put it into black and white, freeing up your brain to be more creative.
- It identifies a 1 root daily habit that will consistently move you towards your goal
- It prioritises all the other tasks not covered by your daily habit
- And finally, it provides a road map for how to proceed and encourages you to schedule your tasks so they actually get done.
We have also provided you a full colour pdf and a low-ink version for you to print out.
Conclusion
Having a system for taking action towards your goals is one of the biggest factors in whether you achieve them or not. For a more detailed analysis on using systems and habits to help you take action, click on this link: the easy way to crush your goals.
You can also have a look at Steve Garguilo’s TED talk on The Science of Taking Action.
Finally, if you want to see a few examples of the Action Planner in use for different types of goals, swing by this article: How to use an action planner.
Let us know if you have any other tricks or tips for taking action in the comments below.
In ‘Next Few Steps’ tradition, which of these steps will you experiment with to help you go from sloth to growth?