The goals you’ve set aren’t as important as the plan you’ve made to achieve them. Success coach Deborah Battersby offers this three-step approach to accomplishing your objectives.

1: Set Your Goals

Before you can succeed in any plan, you must evaluate what you want and when you want it. Start by asking yourself:

• What do I want my career to create for me?
• What inspires me?
• What would my ideal workday look like?
• How, where and with whom would I spend it?
• What contributions do I want to make to my company?
• What resources do I want at my disposal?
• Barring limitations, what would I dare be, do or have?

Now that you’ve determined your goals, you have a better understanding of the steps you must take to reach them.

2: Outline Your Obstacles

You’ll never be free from doubts, but you can keep them in check by making a list of all the reasons you might not achieve your goal. You can then use your list to help you prepare your plan.

Try this: Separate your list into two columns. On one side, list every possible obstacle, and on the other side, list potential solutions to that problem. After you’ve made your list, you can begin working through your solutions to curtail future problems.

3: Break Big Goals Into Smaller Bits

If your long-term goal seems overwhelming at first, try breaking it up into smaller, more manageable pieces that you can accomplish a little bit at a time.

Action plan: Create a storyboard of all of your goal’s smaller components. Add a timeline by which you want to accomplish these smaller pieces. Then start on the first one without worrying about when you’ll tackle the others.

Filed under: Management Minute