In last week’s article, we explored mapping your short-term goals. The next step involves distilling each goal into a list of short-term goals.
From Short-Term Goals to Doable Actions
The next step is to take your short-term goals and turn them into doable actions that can be added to your action item list, and/or your weekly schedule.
I want to place special emphasis on the term “doable action.”
For example, if your short-term goal is:
“Run a full-length marathon within a year.”
And you presently don’t engage in any kind of regular exercise routine — it may be unrealistic to start with with an action like:
“Run everyday for 1 hour.”
A more “doable” action would be something like:
“Place a reminder on my calendar to jog twice a week for twenty minutes.”
Exercise: Turning Goals into Actions
Starting with just the first short-term goal for each long-term goal, list a series of actions you can take right away to address this goal.
Revisiting our previous example, if your short-term goal is:
“Study filmmaking (take classes, read books, etc.)”
Start listing a number of actions you can take right away to reach this goal.
It may look something like this:
- Research “filmmaking books” on the internet. Do a search for “best books on filmmaking”, read reviews, and order books.
- Go to the local library and check out books on filmmaking.
- Watch filmmaking tutorial videos on the internet.
That’s a good start, but you may want to carve out specific times in your schedule each week to address this short-term goal.
You may want to add to your list:
- Every Tuesday afternoon from 2pm – 4pm, study filmmaking. Write it on my calendar!
If you have a big list of actions, you may want to whittle it down a bit, prioritize, and get to a list of the most important (and potentially effective) actions to address this short-term goal.
In this way, go through each long-term goal, choose the first short-term goal, and repeat the process. Once you have your list of action items, the next step is to add them to your action-item list, then onto your calendar.
This is an excerpt from the book The Drummer & The Great Mountain — A Guidebook to Transforming Adult ADD / ADHD — Chapter 6: “Life Visioning.”