To know what I want my life to consist of is great, but yet again it is not enough. I need to break it down even further than I already have. It’s time to make a goal plan, because just simply starting and doing whatever has a history of not working hence that I am where I am. Let’s get to planning the rest of my life. Not only my life of course as I am taking you with me for the ride by showing you exactly how to turn your life plan in achievable goals. Important side note I did only do this for the goals I wanted to accomplish in the next six months to a year, so not every goal on my life plan. Every goal on my life plan seemed a bit much to be honest. We’re taking successful baby steps here!
But you can of course repeat the steps for every goal you have ever.
Recommended: How I Created A Life Plan To Write A Life Story I Love
If you haven’t made your life plan yet, I suggest you do so prior to continuing as having it makes the next part way easier. When you are overhauling your life making a life plan is definite must.
1. Supplies for your goal planning
For me, the best way to turn a goal into a plan is writing the plan out in dots. Somehow I find great satisfaction in being able to cross something off. I could use a check mark “✔️” but then it doesn’t feel accomplished enough. Especially when it was a hard to accomplish goal. Striking through it has extra satisfaction, I highly recommend. Anyways to have a dotted goal plan I need to actually make it, meaning I have been to the craft shop once again to get my colorful supplies. I picked myself up the following:
- A3 Paper
- A4 Paper
- Pens
- Colored Pens
- Glue
- Notebook
2. Goal setting: Determining the actual steps
Since working backwards worked so well when making my word web, I thought I’d do it again. Only difference is I’m not making a wordweb but a bullet point goal plan. Since my life is organized chaos I decided to take a blank piece of paper and start writing.
I wrote in the middle of an A4 paper the main goal, and around it started writing everything that came to mind that I have to do in order to accomplish my goal or better said I had done when I imagine my goals as accomplished. I used A3 sheets for goals I knew had nothing short of a gazillion steps. I also recommend A3 paper if you naturally write big.
When I was about done, I took the big to-do items and wrote them at the top of an A5 paper (I didn’t buy this separately I just cut an A4 paper in half lengthwise).
3. Organizing your goal to-do list
3.1 Color coding your to-do’s
I went to my main A3 (or A4 depending on which sheet you used in the previous step) and gave each big to-do of the main goal their own color and all the ”little” to-do’s that are tied to the big ones got highlighted with the same color in order to know what belongs to what. I did put a circle around the biggest to-do as this brought clarity to my sheets, the biggest to-do is the one you wrote in the middle of the sheets in the previous step.
By giving each big to-do their own color I got immediate clarity, at a glance, what the big to-do items were and their respective steps. Once I color coded everything I made sure to transfer all the ”little” to-do’s to their appropriate A5 to slowly start organizing. So I wrote down the big to-do and the respective steps that I color coded to belong to it under it. Once everything was appropriately organized I took a step back to really look at the list to see if there was anything missing and added them on.
You can do this organizing in a different way as well. I personally really love color coding because it helps to not become completely overwhelmed by everything that needs to get done. Seeing it all on paper like that is.. uhm.. a lot let’s say. When everything is color coded the big goals become smaller and smaller in a way that it becomes manageable to see little goals be achieved each day.
3.2 Coding your to-do’s with Post-it notes
As I said there is another way you can do this too. The other way to organize all the steps of how to accomplish your goals is by writing each step on small post-it notes. After each one is written down and you are ready to start putting the steps of the bigger goals together, you can simply lift the post-it note and move it to the sheet that you want it. You can rinse and repeat this as many times as needed until you have every big goal and their respective steps together.
3.2 Example of color coding goals
Online I can’t circle the big goals but you get the point right?!
Main Goal: Learn Spanish like a native
Big goals:
1. Learn to write Spanish
2. Learn to speak Spanish
Steps to accomplish goal ”little to-do’s”:
Find writing exercises
Learn Spanish Spelling rules
Search for a tutor
Practice Vocabulary words
Learn Spanish Grammar rules
Find Learning Platform
Find Spanish educational listening materials
(Of course there were more steps to doing this but as this is just an example I cut it short.)
As you can see the main goal here is ”learning Spanish like a native”. That is the one with the circle around it as to separate it from the rest. Now on the A5 sheets, in this example, one has ”Learn to write Spanish” at the top and another one has ”Learn to speak Spanish”. Below ”Learn to write Spanish” it has in points the following:
- Find writing exercises
- Learn Spanish spelling rules
- Learn Spanish grammar rules
It has only those as those are the ones that coordinate with the color of the big to-do, which was blue. The pink ones go under ”Learn to speak Spanish”.
It all make more sense now right?
If you prefer the post-it note method then you write the big goal such as ”Learn to speak Spanish” on a bigger post-it and the little to-do’s, for example ”Search for a tutor”, on smaller post-its. You can do this with colors as well but it really depends on how crafty you want to get by cutting the post-its in different sizes yourself or how well supplied your office supply or craft store is.
4. Filling in the details
Then it was time to fill in the details which is basically trying to define the goal to the nitty gritty to-do’s, such as needing to ”pick up a new notebook” or ”call company XYZ”. I did this per ”little” to-do on the backside of each A5. You can also do it on the frontside if you still have room. You can never have all details in place because as you start working you will realize what more you need and what can be skipped for example.
The last step is to number your ”little” to-do’s to determine in what order they need to happen. For this step it is still true that sometimes the order gets messed up because well life. So do not hold on to the numbering for dear life. It is just a guidance. Make sure that when you number your to-do’s you take the front and back of our A5 sheet into account.
5. Make a definite to-do list for your goals
Last but not least I made a pretty bullet list in my brand spanking new notebook. I used one or more pages per big goal and it’s ”little” to-do’s. The order in which the little to-do’s were written was based on the numbers I used in the previous step. Personally I left out the numbers as I know they will give me anxiety when seeing how many steps I still have left to do. I know you can still count them in your head or see how many you crossed of but the number is an at a glance notice, the others need an extra action step that I know I probably won’t do. Know that this is a personal note so you can add the numbers if you are not bothered by them.
I also left a blank page or two in between each goal for future touch ups. The goal plan we made today is more for you to keep an organization which feels logical, but in the end working logical is another thing. So when things go south don’t keep holding on but adjust and see if there’s another aspect that can already be started or be finished. That’s why an extra page or two to write adjustments can be really handy.
Don’t let your goal plan just exist! Start working on it so that means transferring the steps of your goals to your to-do book. Now I first hand know how easy it is to lose sight of why and what you are doing so therefore I created a specialized to-do book where you can keep all your plans, steps and goals together. It enables you to plan your goal setting per year, per month, per week and most importantly per day. It also enables you to keep track of what has gotten done and what has not.
So what are you waiting for? Grab your to-do book here and start changing your life for the better now! Stop planning on someday for the love of yourself!
Realizing all my dreams with my goal plan in one hand and my pen in the other.
Love,
DCPR.
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