Action plan for turning life around

[Lifesucks2024]

Has anyone else done an action plan/project plan for turning your life around? I feel like I need direction and clear cut actions but no idea how to set it out on the page.

I’ve never done this for life goals but plenty of times for staff action plans. You could use the SMART method. Each goal can be broken down into five characteristics:

• specific
• measurable
• achievable
• relevant
• time-bound

There are plenty of online templates online that you could utilise along with other guidance on how to use them.

Once you have identified your main goals you need to breakdown the steps you will need to take to make them achievable. Be honest with yourself about what you can achieve and how long it will take but hold yourself accountable too. You might find it useful to set yourself a predefined reward that you can treat yourself to when you reach certain milestones.

Thanks. It just seems like a big task but overall think it'll help a lot.

Best of luck

Thank you. That's very kind.

I'm a list person, with a notebook! This weeks small things on the right, next six months bigger things on the left. Hopes and dreams in the back, places you want to visit, foods you want to try, exercise ideas (like 20 min walk everyday) or bigger (climb this big mountain or hill).

Then every weeks, reevaluate, move things closer to the front of the book and break them down into smaller steps until the big dreams start getting worked on in little chunks.

There are some helpful structured journals/planners that are quite good. A bit cheesy but the structure is helpful.

I'm using one called the productivity planner but there are loads of different ones on amazon.

I'm a project manager and I would use some of the techniques I use in workshops.

I'd firstly think about what my long term goals are in this new direction. So if I'm thinking of myself I'd probably like to be in better financial control and also lose weight.

For each of the goals I'd write down a list of the things that are currently preventing me from achieving it and also a list of all the things that are working in my favour/my strengths (always good to reflect on the positives too)

Then I'd go through each list and try and identify the top 3 obstacles and 3 strengths that have the biggest impact.

For each of the top 3 obstacles I'd then think about what I could do to remove this as an obstacle and this then becomes an 'action'. For each of the top 3 strengths I'd think about how I could really leverage each of these so they were working to my advantage. Again, these would become my 'actions'

You'll be left with a sort of map that starts at the top with your goals and then has top 3 obstacles and strengths for each-and then under them a set of actions

Id then be looking at all the actions and identifying 'quick wins' that I can implement straight away as making small steps towards these will make you feel a real sense of achievement.

You can then look at the remaining actions and spread them through the year. Don't try and change too much at once-it's a recipe for failure and then you're in danger of packing it all in! Small steps

And remember it takes nearly 70 times of doing something new to form a habit so don't expect daily changes to feel easy straight away!

Sorry for the long winded post but good luck and I hope this helps!