Knowing how to create a strategic action plan is one of the fundamental aspects to consider in order to start your business well or to achieve any of your other objectives.
The more ambitious your project is, the more important it is to build a good strategic action plan.
Especially in the early stages, however, it may be difficult to have in mind all the steps you need to take to get where you want.
Just to avoid finding yourself with doubts and confusion, it is useful to first consider the other fundamental aspects to successfully move from employee to independent :
- have an absolutely clear vision and direction (where you want to go, how and why)
- optimally prepare your environment
- identify any useful knowledge and skills to update and acquire
- become master of your mind and emotions, thus annihilating any internal blocks and obstacles
This does not mean standing still, both because working on any of these aspects is already moving, and because often you can deal with multiple aspects at the same time. Especially if you are a person who feels the need for immediate and concrete actions towards the goal, you can immediately start with the action and proceed simultaneously with all the other aspects.
But how do you create a strategic action plan?
Topic index
- Small steps and effective goals
- The right timeline
- The strategic action plan needs to be recalibrated
- Your strategic action plan isn’t perfect
- The right habits help you
Small steps and effective goals
It is basically a matter of defining the macro steps to be taken and then breaking them up into smaller and more manageable steps, up to a simple, fast, effective action that allows you to take a small step forward towards the goal.
Each of these macro and micro steps must be defined as an effective objective, that is:
- specific,
- measurable,
- achievable and realistic,
- can be placed in a specific time
- and more, as you can read in more detail in ” Effective goal, to achieve what you want“
The aim is to have a small step every day that brings you closer to your goal. These are actions you can do even if you don’t feel like it that day, or if other unexpected priorities take over.
It is precisely the fact of having daily tasks that can be easily carried out, which allows you to manage your days successfully and with the elasticity that real life requires.
In creating your strategic action plan, it is also important to consider rest times and time to devote to something else. We therefore need a healthy realism on what is really possible.
And no matter how small the step you can take, the important thing is to go on and never stop.
The right timeline
Establishing the right timeline of your strategic action plan is important. Indeed I could say that it is precisely for this reason that you can define it as “strategic”.
It is in fact useless to waste energy on some activity that cannot bear fruit if some other activity is not completed first.
For example, it doesn’t make sense that you worry about who you can integrate into your work team if your business is still in the starting blocks. Or if you are creating an online business, one of the first steps to take is not building a website, but rather defining a plan for acquiring customers, or contacts with potential customers. And for this you don’t necessarily need a website.
It is therefore a matter of carefully evaluating the correct sequence and of “not putting the cart before the horse”.
Listing “black on white” all the activities needed to achieve your success can be useful in identifying the phases and therefore establishing the right priorities.
The strategic action plan needs to be recalibrated
In reality, the path you take is always a “work in progress”, that is, a process in constant evolution.
And it can only be this way.
In fact, you are constantly evolving because creating your business means embarking on a path of transformation. In this process, moreover, not only do you make new discoveries about yourself, but you deepen more and more the various aspects of the actions that can quickly bring you to your desired final result. Finally, even the world around you can change and sometimes even a lot.
Any of your strategic action plans must therefore be modifiable and elastic, while maintaining concrete steps and steps to be taken in a specific time.
It is therefore a good training for your adaptability as well as for your creativity.
Your strategic action plan isn’t perfect
No scenario is perfect.
The beauty is that you don’t need a perfect strategic action plan. What you need is an action plan that you can follow and that can unfailingly lead you to your goal.
So keep your direction straight to your final dream and desire even if it seems unrealistic. It could be for example: having a magnificent villa with swimming pool, taking a cruise around the world, or conquering the ultimate economic security by earning one million euros per year. In fact, this is what inspires you and motivates all your actions.
Then more concretely think of a plan that can be implemented for your first 12 months, then for the 4 blocks of 90 days, for the individual months and finally at the week or even daily level.
Where do you want to go from here to a year? What macro activities do you need to achieve the one-year goal?
What activities can you do in the first 90 days and then in the subsequent 90-day blocks that make up the year?
How can you divide these activities into monthly actions? And so on down to the weekly and daily micro activities.
The right habits help you
Having an effective action plan can also be of great help in maintaining motivation.
Seeing the steps you take day after day gives great pleasure. Hence the importance of establishing precise times for each step. Trying to balance the right stimulus with serenity and feasibility.
To keep up with what you decide to do, it is also useful to have the right positive habits for:
- maximize your energy and general well-being,
- be able to keep up without ever losing the right rhythm.
In conclusion, therefore, to take full advantage of your action plan, you need:
- have the goal clear,
- establish all actions and their times and priorities,
- get help from good habits,
- do even one micro action per day
Speed is not the key to success, but the consistency of the right steps over time.
