YOUR YEAR – ACTION PLAN

EP #70

 

“Do I need a life coach?” You’re listening to Episode 70, with Rhiannon Bush. Part 4 of the Your Year Series.

 

Welcome to the Do I need a life coach? Podcast. We’re here to discuss the ins- and outs- of the life coaching industry and give you tools to use, to see for yourself. I’m your host, Rhiannon Bush. Mother, management consultant and a passionate, certified life coach.

 

After completing your perfect average day – and whether you’ve completed it or not, let’s keep moving because sometimes it’s more important to get to a place where you can say “that’s good enough” – progress over perfection. What you have will be fine and the work we’ll continue to do will help you revisit that and formulate it more clearly as we go along.

 

We also have your Goal. Your SMARTER goal. Today we’ll break that goal down into achievable steps and begin creating timelines around achieving these steps. It will help you to work out the milestones that will guide you along the path to achieving your goal and create an action plan to safely manage working towards your vision.

 

The more we can live as if it’s true while we’re going about achieving it, the sooner we can work out, in advance, whether the goal is actually something we want long-term or whether it’s just a pipe dream. For instance if you dream of living in a specific location – have you visited that location? Or if you’re working towards fitness goals, are you making good progress against where you want to get to? Are you making fast enough progress or do you need to adjust your timeline or kick it up a gear? We can’t manage what we don’t measure so getting much more prescriptive about this will help you achieve it reasonably and sustainably.

 

Let’s break down your SMARTER goal into steps. Let’s start with a bigger step…. Grab your SMARTER goal. Remember, if the goal is too big and you can’t see it right now, pick a step that you can see that will get you closer to your bigger vision. If you’re not sure, shut your eyes for two seconds, do a body scan and whatever comes to you, go with that. Trust that that message has come to you for a reason and just go with it so we can get this done and get you an action plan. It’s more important to take action than to stay stuck thinking about it too much.

 

Your SMARTER goal may encompass multiple areas of your life – finance, health, romance, friendships, whatever your heart desires. For this break-down process, pick one of your aspirations in one of these areas and repeat the process for all areas. Pick the area that matters most to you – the one thing you really want to achieve.

 

Quick reminder about using all your senses. Visulisation is great. If you can see it, even if it’s vague – which I’m guessing it will be, that works too. Feel it, smell it, taste it, touch it. Embody the goal you’ve set for yourself and remind yourself of why you want to achieve it.

 

Now, we’re going to break it into 10 steps. Step 10 is achieving the goal. The very moment you know you’ve done it. We’ve already written Step 10 – Step 10 is your SMARTER goal.

 

Now let’s go to Step 9. What happens right before you achieve the goal? The thing that happens right before you know you’ve done it. Go there now. That may be a training session where you complete 40km in under 3 hours, the week before your marathon is scheduled.

 

Or walking into through the door to the restaurant right before you meet the future partner of your children.

 

Or having a coffee before calling the realtor to make an offer on the house of your dreams.

 

Whatever it is for you, that you dream. What happens right before IT happens?

 

In the example I gave last episode, the thing before it happens, Step 9, would be a call from a customer to place an order that took the yearly revenue over $550k. Step 10 would be seeing his actuals for the year in his accounting system being over $550k when he generated the invoice and sent it to the client.

 

What is your Step 9?

 

Next we go to step 5 - half-way to your goal. What does halfway look like? How will you know?

 

Half-way for marathon training: consistently and comfortably running over 20km 3-5 times per week and 10 weeks out from the race. And if running a marathon was your SMARTER goal, you’d have a month or date by which you’d be at this half-way mark.

 

Meeting someone romantically is more difficult because there’s only so much control you have over that outcome. So the half-way mark would be that you’re actively dating and putting yourself out there, and that you’re happy within yourself and with who you are. You’re focused on things you can control and things that make you happy, and therefore a better prospect to someone looking to date you.

 

An example of what Step 5 might look like for your dream home would be that you’ve saved 80% of your deposit and you’re aware of what areas you want to buy in. You frequent those areas because you enjoy them and you know when you’ll start actively looking at properties to put offers on.

 

Step 5 for business – seeing $275k in the balance sheet, by end of December the year before, depending on seasonal adjustments to the budget.

 

Next – complete Step 6. The step after your half-way mark.

 

Then go back to Step 1 – What’s your first milestone?

 

Marathon – maybe running 5km. Future partner – completing your dating profile or asking your close friends if they know of anybody. Your dream-home - setting up a savings account for your deposit, knowing how much you can put in there each pay, and how much you need to save for your deposit. Business – have a budget based on previous years’ data to work out high and low revenue months, and then from the previous years’ revenue, the gap between that and $550k. Step 1 is to ensure all current accounts are satisfied and re-order.

 

Now we’ve done Step 1, 5, 6, 9 and 10. I would recommend doing Step 2 next, and then flesh out 3, 4, 7 and 8 in any order you choose.

 

These are your guideposts along the way to achieving your SMARTER goal. Make sure you turn each of these steps into SMARTER goals where you can, as well. Make them specific, make them measurable, give them time frames with actual dates. Put those dates into your calendar and make sure you evaluate and re-assess as you go. If you type ‘Roadmap’ into Microsoft Excel under templates, there are some pretty roadmaps you can create. Canva does the same thing. Make your Action Plan pretty and appealing to you. Print it out, stick it somewhere where you see it often. This is for your RAS.

 

Your roadmap plots your course of action. It’s like project managing your goal achievement by monitoring and assessing your goals as you achieve them.

 

It makes it simple. If you hit a milestone on your action plan and you’re not where you want to be or thought you’d be, you simply reassess and adjust your course. You don’t give up or forget about your dreams. You simply readjust and carry on.

 

Enjoy your action plan and use it as a guide. Be proud of it and feel the power of having it written down.

 

Well done. I’ll see you soon.

 

 

 

Hey! Before you go, I always find reviews really helpful when looking for new information or insights…

 

I you’ve found this podcast valuable, please take a minute to write a quick review about what you’ve found most beneficial for you, so other people can benefit from your insights, and listen in too. I would LOVE that!

Also, if there are any topics you’d like me to cover specifically about life coaching or the life coaching industry, visit rhiannonbush.com to contact me. Thanks for joining and I’ll see you in the next episode of Do I Need A Life Coach?!

 

 

Please note, this transcription may not be exact.