With just a few days left until the new year, we’re taking a deep dive into your goals for 2023, with a five-day goal creation series. Today is day 5 and we’re designing a kick-butt action plan to take our goals from written on paper to getting big results. So, if you want to know what it takes to achieve your 2023 goals – then, let’s get started.
Links for This Episode
Podcast Episode Recommendations
- #35: How To Use Hard Times to Create a Bigger Impact
- #36: How to Clarify Your Purpose + Vision for 2023
- #37: How to Create a Theme for 2023 That Keeps You Motivated All Year Long
- #38: How to Choose Goals that ACTUALLY Matter for 2023
How to Create a Kick-Butt Action Plan + Achieve Your 2023 Goals
Well, hey there and welcome to the final episode in our 2023 Goals Creation series. I’m your host, Sarah Brumley, and I’m so glad you are here with me as we create a kick-butt action plan designed to get you those results.
Can I just ask you a quick favor? If you’ve found anything I’ve provided this week to be useful, will you leave a five-star rating and review for the show? Not only do I get the opportunity to read each and every one, but by doing so, you help the show reach more people through the podcast app. Also, if you have a fellow mama friend or coworker that could use this series to help them achieve their bigger dreams for 2023, will you share it with them? You can shoot them an email, a text message, a screenshot, post on social or whatever works best for you, but I appreciate you sharing it and I know they will, too!
Alrighty, so far this week we’ve conquered:
Monday: How To Use Hard Times to Create a Bigger Impact
Tuesday: How to Clarify Your Purpose + Vision for 2023
Wednesday: How to Create a Theme for 2023 That Keeps You Motivated All Year Long
Thursday: How to Choose Goals that ACTUALLY Matter for 2023
Friday: How to Create a Kick-Butt Action Plan + Achieve Your 2023 Goals
Okeydokie…it’s that time. It’s time to create an action plan. And if you know me, you know I love action. Why? Because action is where the dreams turn into the reality.
Today we are going to create a kick-butt action plan to help you turn your dreams for 2023 into a reality. Sound exciting? Well, it sure does to me!
The key to being able to take action is knowing what to do and when to do it. So, grab those goals you wrote out yesterday and the goals workbook pages for today and let’s jump right in.
In order to create our action plan today, we’re going to follow three steps.
Step #1: Determine a Time frame
The first step is to determine a time frame for each goal you’ve created. Now, if you were with me for yesterday’s episode and created SMART goals, then this should be a step you’ve can check off your list. Otherwise, take a quick moment to go back through your goals and identify when you want to have that goal completed.
Step #2: Break it Down (Quarters + Months + Weeks)
The second step in the process is to break down those goals within the bigger time frame. To show you how to do this, I’m going to give a couple of examples.
FINANCIAL GOAL: Let’s say that your financial goal is to save $3000 by December 2023 so that you can have a safety net should an emergency occur. Obviously, you won’t be able to do this in a single month, which is why you’ve made it a big goal for the entire year. Personally, I do a quarterly review to check the status of my goals and determine what needs to change or what I’m not succeeding with, so I’d choose to break this down into quarters first. So, how much do you need to save each quarter in order to meet your goal? Well, if we take the total $3000 and divide it by 4, we know we need to save $750 each quarter in order to meet our goal. Then if we break it down further, dividing $750 by 3 months, then we know we have to save $250 each month in order to meet that goal.
Of course, you can get the same results if you take the total amount of $3000 and divide it by 12. We have to save $250 each month.
I don’t know about you, but suddenly that $3000 seems more manageable, right? You could also break this down further if, for example, you know that you get paid twice per month. Then you’d want to save $125 per pay period.
Once again, the benefit of having a quarterly goal is that you can re-evaluate your progress based on those quarterly numbers so that you know where you stand as you move into the next quarter. Plus, I find it’s more satisfying when I hit those little benchmarks throughout the year. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate achieving their quarterly goal?
Alrighty, second example of this.
WEIGHT GOAL: Let’s say that you wanted to lose 10 pounds by June 2023 so that you can feel good on your beach vacation. In this case, we won’t want to break it down across the entire year because we want that goal knocked out by June. So, that gives us two quarters. If we break that 10 pounds down into those two quarters, we know that we need to lose 5 pounds per quarter. Break that down further by dividing 5 pounds by the three months in that first quarter, you know that you need to lose 1.6 pounds per month in order to be successful. And…even further, that boils down to less than half a pound per week.
Suddenly VERY doable, right?
Okay, and one final example of a goal that doesn’t break down quite as easily.
BUSINESS GOAL: Perhaps one of your business goals this year is to create and market an online course by December 31, 2023. Knowing you have four quarters, you’ll want to consider what the four big pieces of this goal will be. Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here so don’t use this word for word, okay, but perhaps you’ll want:
- Q1 to be your market and platform research time frame.
- Q2 could be creating course content.
- Q3 could be tech related – getting the course set up in the platform and recording videos, etc.
- Q4 could be marketing related – getting the word out there and then opening the cart.
From there, you’ll want to just focus on Q1 because you know that each quarter will require the work from the previous one. So, you’ll break down Q1 which was market and platform research into the smaller tasks you need to complete over the course of each month and then further into each week.
Now, obviously this is a goal you’ll have to revisit every single quarter because you will need (and want) to make plans for the next phase of the content creation based on what you learned and accomplished in the current quarter.
Make sense?
Okay, so now it’s your turn. Take the goals you created and break them down by quarters. Then, focus on just quarter one and break that goal down into action steps you’ll take each month, if applicable, and week. Don’t get bogged down in the other quarters at this point because things change. You might knock out that weight loss goal in Q1 and not even have to worry about it. Or, you might find yourself with a huge, unexpected expense in Q1 and have to make up for lost time with your savings goals in Q2-Q4. So, don’t duplicate your efforts now.
Step #3: Add to Your Planner
Alrighty, the final step to this process is to schedule your goals into your planner. Now, it’s not about writing down the goal necessarily, although that’s okay as well, but you have a specific list now, by month and by week of things you need to accomplish in order to achieve that big goal. And remember – that big goal is part of that big vision of where you dream you’ll be and who you dream you’ll be at the end of 2023. So this part…this part really matters.
Because, like I said at the beginning – action is where the dreams turn into the reality. Chances are that if you don’t schedule in these tasks, you won’t take action, and that great big vision of yours won’t become a reality.
So, pull out your 2023 planner and schedule these action items in to each month and each week, as appropriate. For example, if I need to save $250 per month, I’m probably going to include that in my monthly planning so that I can immediately move that money over to my savings account when I’m working on our monthly budget. That’s a monthly action item.
But, if I’m trying to lose half a pound each week, that’s going to be a weekly action item that I’m probably going to pair with a habit tracker for exercise or a healthy meal plan that gets me results.
If you had a chance to listen to my to-do list episode from a few weeks back, you know I gave you a specific strategy I use to schedule your to-do list priorities each and every week. But if you haven’t listened to that one you can definitely check that episode out – it’s episode 23 – AND I do give you a FREE weekly planning sheet that you can use to do so.
For me, I do sit down at the beginning of each week and schedule these things in, so if keeping that list of goals and action steps nearby and looking at it each week as you plan out what your priorities are works for you – then do that.
But…remember – if you don’t take action, you won’t achieve great results. So…make sure you prioritize this.
What about incentives?
Now, I do want to take a moment to talk about incentives. For a lot of people pairing an incentive with goal or task accomplishment can be motivating. For example, you might tell yourself that if you get to the gym all seven days this week, you can buy those new shoes you wanted. Or something along those lines.
Personally, I don’t find that it motivates me to have that outside incentive, but if it’s something that works or has worked for you in the past – feel free to add that to your goals as well. Just be careful that you don’t ruin your big vision by doing so.
By that I mean, don’t go out and spend hundreds of dollars to reward yourself for losing weight when you also have a big goal of saving money. Right. Okay, so as long as we are clear on that.
Take Action: Achieve Your 2023 Goals
And with that – we’ve reached the end of our 2023 Goals Creation Series. Can you believe it? I’m personally so proud of all of the work that you and so many other mamas have put in to this process of creating big goals to achieve big results in 2023. God has big plans for you this year – I just know it.
Obviously, we’re taking a couple days off to celebrate the New Year, but Monday, I’m returning to talk to you all about the ONE phrase I’m leaving behind in 2023 + What I’m doing instead. Then, later next week, I’ll jump in to tell you all about my 2023 goals as well. It’s only fair that I share mine with you since you’ve all be so open with me about yours.
I know from personal experience that I am more likely to accomplish what I set out to do if I am accountable to someone. So make sure to grab that Mama Business Strategy Session by going to sarahbrumley.com/strategy and using code NEWYEAR to get that $25 off. I can’t wait to celebrate progress, strategize your plan, and cheer you on moving forward. And you know me, mama, I am definitely cheering you on.
Have an amazing day and I’ll chat with you soon.
