Action Planning

kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/skillsactionplanning.htm

WHAT IS ACTION PLANNING?

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get
there.
Yogi Berra

Action planning is a process which will help you to focus your ideas and to decide what
steps you need to take to achieve particular goals that you may have. It is a statement of
what you want to achieve over a given period of time. Preparing an action plan is a good way
to help you to reach your objectives in life: don't worry about the future, start planning for it!

It involves:
Identifying your objectives
Setting objectives which are achievable & measurable.
Prioritising your tasks effectively.
Identifying the steps needed to achieve your goals.
Using lists.
Being able to work effectively under pressure.
Completing work to a deadline.

Having a contingency plan

1/9
Click on any of the boxes in the chart above to take you to the relevant part of this page/other
related pages or click here for a larger version of the chart.

Writing down your goals turns them into a plan, not a dream.

A study of 327 job seekers by Daniel Turban of University of Missouri College of Business found that
writing a plan at the start of your job search, has a big impact on success: make a plan and
continuously assess your progress.

"Thinking about a plan, acting on a plan and reflecting upon that a plan were important early in the job
search while having positive emotions were important later in the job search"

You also have to expect rejections and develop a coping strategy in advance. This should help
maintain positive emotions during the process to improve your chances of getting a job. Positive
emotions may help job seekers behave more confidently and cope better with stress, “thereby
responding more skillfully in interviews than job seekers with less positive emotions”

“People don’t have strategies, they don’t assess their plans and they don’t think about their strategies and
reflect on whether it’s working or how to make them work better. They just don’t do it."

An effective action plan should give you a concrete timetable and set of clearly defined
steps to help you to reach your objective, rather than aimlessly wondering what to do next. It
helps you to focus your ideas and provides you with an answer to the question ‘‘What do I do
to achieve my objective?’’.

It’s OK to have several objectives, but you will need to make a separate action plan for each,
otherwise things get confused.
2/9
Although here we shall be applying the techniques to careers, it can be used effectively to help
you to reach your goals in many other aspects of your life.

The following are all valid goals for an action plan:

To get more involved in a student society to get to know more people.

Deciding what skills I need to improve and deciding how I will improve them.

When careers action planning there are likely to be three main areas for
action plans. These are:
It’s essential to have clear goals in place rather than just vague descriptions, such as saying
you want to grow. Success in any walk of life is based on putting your goals first. ... Find out
what you want, decide exactly how you will achieve it, and let nothing distract you from the end
result.
James Caan

ACTION PLANNING MODEL

In a survey of 50 start-up businesses, those with a plan outperformed those without even if the plan was
not followed!

Working together to develop a plan builds stronger relationships and a deeper shared understanding of
what needs to be done, so if unexpected things happen individuals can make good decisions.

The best return occurs when just one percent of the time taken to carry out a task is spent on
planning. Too much planning can be procrastination: delaying actually getting down to taking action.

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable" President
Eisenhower (overlord of D-Day landings)

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Benjamin Franklin

There are many different models of action planning, but a good starting point is shown here.
Action planning is a cyclical process, and once you have been through one cycle, you can start
again at the beginning. Of course, in real life it’s not quite as simple as this. The process is
more organic and stages will overlap, or you may change your goals as you progress, and you
must be prepared to revise your plan as circumstances dictate. The stages are as follows:

WHERE AM I NOW? This is where you review your achievements and progress, and
undertake self-assessment.

WHERE DO I WANT TO BE? This is where you decide your goals.

HOW DO I GET THERE? This is where you define the strategy you will use to achieve
your goals, and to break down your goal into the smaller discreet steps you will need to
take to achieve your target.

TAKING ACTION. This is the nitty gritty where you implement your plan!
3/9
 WHERE AM I NOW?

The cycle begins again with a redefinition of your goals........

The main steps in preparing an action plan are as follows:

A study on 1979 Harvard MBA students asked them, "Have you set clear, written goals for your
future and made plans to accomplish them?"

Only 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13% had non-written goals and 84% had no
specific goals at all.

Ten years later, they were interviewed again. The 13% of the class who had goals were earning,
on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals. And the 3% who had clear, written
goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% put together.

Have a clear objective. (‘‘Where do I want to be?’’). To be motivating a goal needs to

be challenging enough to stimulate us, but not too difficult enough to be demoralising. It
should be just outside your comfort zone: stretching but not highly stressful. Be precise
about what you want to achieve,
List the benefits you would gain by achieving your goal.

Start with what you will do NOW. There is no point in having an action plan that will
start in six months time.

Define clearly the steps you will take. ("How do I get there?’’) Think of all the possible
things you could do to take you closer to achieving your goal, no matter how small.
Break down any large steps into smaller components, so it doesn’t seem so difficult to
achieve. What is the biggest obstacle? What could go wrong?
Identify the end point for each step and give yourself a small reward for achieving it!
This could be sweets, clothes, a gadget, book or CD or meal out with friends.

Arrange the steps in a logical, chronological order and put a date by which you
will start each step. Put these dates into your diary or onto a calendar. Try to set
yourself weekly goals: what research you will do into jobs, what skills you will
concentrate on learning etc. It’s also a good idea to get into the habit of planning a
timetable each evening listing your tasks for the next day or two.
You need to consider if your plans are attainable and what would happen if you failed to
achieve your goals. Try to map out several paths to your goal, then if one becomes
blocked another is available: build flexibility into your planning. People tend to strongly
underestimate how long a project will take, especially if working in a group because they
tend to visualise everything going to plan with no problems. Think about the type of
problems you might encounter at each step. What are the barriers in the way of
achieving your goal? What you would do to overcome these problems? Concentrate
4/9
 Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Jim Ryun

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out

Robert Collier

Action generates the impetus for further action: if you want something done quickly, give it to a busy
person.

The best time to do something is usually NOW!

“Never confuse motion with action.” Benjamin Franklin. Work smart rather than hard. Rather than
running around like a headless chicken from one idea to the next, pay attention to quality rather
than the quantity of effort you put in.

Life satisfaction is greatest for those involved in short term goals which are enjoyable, not
too difficult; and done in cooperation with others. Focus on one objective at a time and always
have the next goal in mind. To accomplish more difficult tasks, break them down into components.
The most satisfaction comes from pursuing an objective, not simply from achieving it.
Ari Kiev

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le Guin

Unless you have a definite, precise, clearly set goals, you are not going to realize the maximum
potential that lies within you.
Zig Ziglar

Well begun is half done.

Mary Poppins!

One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.
Winnie the Pooh

10% on the problem and 90% on the solution. Try to turn every problem into a challenge
and every challenge into an opportunity.

Review your progress. Keep a diary or blog of your daily activities and record your
progress as things happen: this keeps your plan as concrete as possible. A good time to
start your review is about two weeks after you have begun. Review how far you have got
towards your objective, identify any mistakes you made and what you can learn from
them, look at any new ideas or opportunities that may have presented themselves and
then revise your plan to incorporate these.
Mix with positive people who will encourage you to keep going! Tell your friends or
relatives about your goals. They will provide support when going gets tough and will
also give you an incentive to keep going as you'll feel embarrassed if you have to tell
them you've given up!

When the going gets tough, the tough get going!

5/9
If you take a stand that is visible to others, a drive arises to maintain that stand in order to look
consistent. Public commitment makes people stubborn:

A hardened smoker desperately wanted to stop smoking. She made a list of all the people who
she really wanted to respect her, then got some blank cards and wrote on the back of each
card, “ I promise you that I will never smoke another cigarette” and signed it. She gave or sent
the cards to her family, friends and boyfriend. Stopping was the hardest thing she had ever
done, but every time she thought about having a cigarette, she pictured how all the people on
her list would think of her if she broke her promise. She never smoked again.

If you write your commitments on paper you tend to live up to what you have written down
as written commitments require more effort to make than verbal ones and there is also a
reminder for you. The process of writing things down also seems to embed the commitment in
your brain:

"Set a goal and write it down. Whatever the goal, the important thing is that you set it, so
you've got something for which to aim- and that you write it down. There is something magical
about writing things down. So set a goal and write it down. When you reach that goal, set
another and write that down. You'll be off and running." Amway Corporation

6/9
From Supportive text messages can double the chance of someone successfully quitting
the smoking, according to a study published in The Lancet Over 10% of smokers who received
encouraging texts such as "you can do it" had quit after six months, but only 4.9% who did not have
the same support gave up. Dr Caroline Free, who led the trial said: "Text messages are a very
convenient way for smokers to receive support to quit. People described txt2stop as being like
having a friend encouraging them or an angel on their shoulder." Similar text messages could be
used to help people modify other behaviour.

Put "Eat Chocolate" at the top of your daily to-do list. That way you can be sure that you'll
accomplish at least one of your tasks.

excellent Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Professor Robert Cialdini

Beating Procrastination

Motivation gets you started but habit keeps you going.

Procrastination can involve the fear of failure, perfectionism ("I don't want to get anything
wrong"), lack of self control, not breaking projects into smaller parts, and underestimating how
long it will takes to do things.

Once you have started an activity, your mind constantly nags away until you have completed
it. Once it's done, your mind clears it away, like when you close down a program on your
computer. So start an activity and just spend a few minutes on it initially and this should
help to beat procrastination. As the Mastermind quizmaster says: "I've started so I'll finish!".

Visualisation techniques can help prepare neural pathways in the brain for when the task is
performed for real. However research has found that visualising just the outcome
decreases chance of success so you need to imagine the steps along the way as well.
Oettingen and Mayer found that students who reported fantasizing about success made fewer
job applications, received less job offers and had smaller salaries. So you need to realistically
assess problems that could be encountered as well.

Building in rewards for completing the steps in your plan

It’s a good idea to think of a small reward

to give yourself for completing each step
above to keep you motivated. The bigger
the step, the larger the reward could be.
STEP 1: Some nice chocolate
STEP 2: More chocolate!
STEP 3: Time in gym to burn off chocolate!
STEP 4: Book by favourite author
COMPLETION: Meal out with friends to celebrate!

Setting yourself concrete goals to help others makes you happier!

Researchers at Stanford University found that setting goals to help others that are achievable
gives you a greater sense of satisfaction that having an abstract concept of helping others.
Givers experience greater happiness if they have concrete, specific goals of benevolence:
making someone smile or increasing recycling rather than similar but abstract goals such as
like making someone happy or saving the environment. This is because when you pursue
concrete goals, your expectations of success are more likely to be met. Jennifer Aaker, the
7/9
lead researcher said: 'A prosocial act can not only boost the happiness of the recipient, but it
can boost the happiness of the giver as well.' Pursuing happiness without clearly defined goals
can actually make us more unhappy due to unrealistic expectations.

EXAMPLE COMPLETED ACTION PLAN Date I expect My reward for

to complete completing
MY OBJECTIVE IS: To choose my future career! this step by this step will
be
TO ACHIEVE THIS I NEED TO:
List the steps you need to take. Be detailed and specific (not ‘‘I'll
contact some employers’’, but ‘‘Find email addresses of 5 local
employers who have marketing departments & contact them"

I will tell my plan to: my three best friends, my parents!

I will start my action plan on (date): 3rd March

Step 1. I will use the Prospects Planner computer guidance system to 4th March Some nice
help me to identify jobs of interest chocolate!

Step 2. I will use the "What can I do with my degree in ..." pages to 6th March More nice
find out what jobs graduates from my subject can enter chocolate!

Step 3. I will pick up booklets from the Career Service on some of the 9th March Time in gym to
careers suggested and browse through these. burn off
chocolate!

Step 4. I will use the Careers Network to arrange a day shadowing the Over Easter Book by
work of a graduate in the Career that seems to be most of interest. vacation favourite author

Step 5. I will see my careers adviser to discuss the ideas I have got By 10th May Meal out with
from the above and to narrow these down. friends

What problems am I likely to face? What will I do to overcome these?

Fear of life after university. Have procrastinated too long and now realise that I must take action or miss
opportunities.
Will I be able to arrange a suitable work-shadow? If nobody suitable in the Careers Network, may have to
contact companies directly for help.

Now write your own action plan ...... Date I expect My reward for
to complete completing
MY OBJECTIVE IS: this step by this step will
be
TO ACHIEVE THIS I NEED TO:
List the steps you need to take. Be detailed and specific (not ‘‘I'll
contact some employers’’, but ‘‘Find email addresses of 5 local
employers who have marketing departments & contact them"

I will tell my plan to:

I will start my action plan on (date):

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

8/9
 Step 4

Step 5

What problems am I likely to face? What will I do to overcome these?

"World class performance comes from striving for a target just out of reach., but with a vivid
awareness of how the gap might be breached. Over time, though constant repetition and deep
concentration the gap will disappear, only for a new target to be created, just out of reach once
again."

9/9