Plan, Action and Achieve

When the objectives we set are large or complex, we often need a plan of some sort to ensure we reach them. However, planning is just half of the story: you also need to take action. Before implementation of any plan, it's useful to check where you are both physically and mentally. Achieving our success is based on our "whole" being fully present and accountable, and that means making sure both bodies are not only on board but have the capability to do the work necessary.

Take a few moments to take another look at your plan. Look at the activities that make up the plan, the feasibility of them, and the overall timeline. Then ask yourself the question: "Am I ready for this challenge mentally? Physically?"

If the answers are yes to both, then try asking yourself these questions:

• "Am I ready to let go of or put on hold certain areas of my life so I can continue this challenge?"
• "If I am not ready now, when will be I ready?"
• "What do I need to in order to have the right mental perspective and physical support?"
• "Do I need outside help?"

The idea behind answering these questions is to gently ask yourself and to be as honest with yourself as possible while allowing yourself to go as far as you can. If you are looking at your plan and the feelings of confrontation arise, this might be an indication there are more "things" you need to do in order to be ready to before putting your plan into action.

Maybe you have been having a hard time lately due to a breakup or death. You may have experienced stress associated with things such as moving or finishing school. If this is the case, maybe you needed to give yourself a little time before jumping into working on your next life’s goal. What about physically? Is or has there been an instance in the last little while that may impact your ability to step into action?

The idea here isn’t about providing yourself excuses for not stepping into action or enabling yourself to procrastinate. It's about assessing where you are, how you're doing, what you're capable of and when the right timing is. All these pieces of the self-assessment are important to ensure that when you do step into action, the plan you’ve carefully put together will actually be a plan you can follow and to which you can stick.

Pulling a plan together toward achieving a goal takes more than just slapping a few tasks down on a piece of paper and calling it good. We need to think about the skills necessary for our plan to be successful and ask ourselves, "Do I have the skills, or do I need to acquire a new skill?" Sometimes you find you need additional training in a particular area so that you feel more confident to meet the challenge; if that is not possible, you need to bring in an additional team member who has that skill.