The 2011 Action Plan

Who says I can't get stoned?

Plan a trip to Japan alone.

Doesn't matter if I even go.

- John Mayer

Leading off from my last post about living intentionally and Seth Godin's recent post about how you are your own worst boss I'm going to share about why 2011 is going to be the first year of officially creating and enacting an action plan. I'm going create some of my own language around the use of an action plan (inspired by Seth's blog post):

"You wouldn't go work for a company that made up a yearly plan while hung over, you also wouldn't work for one that would abandon a plan after 2 weeks quoting that they were going to 'figure it out' as they go along.

Why do it: It declares the future that you want to live into. When you say that you are going to do something, what you are really creating is a new life that will be coming at you full on: one that you want to live. It provides the large things that you want to get done and allows you, through an action plan, to work backwards from that reality to today. I personally try to make mine as measurable as possible so that at the end of the year I can see what happened vs what I said was going to happen.

Most importantly I look at why? Was it not as important as I thought it was? Did something catastrophic happen? What? The reason for looking at 'why' is not so much whether or not the reason was valid but who I was in the face of that reason. What the data shows me is me. And I learn something about myself that I didn't see before.

Why no one actually does it: Because it looks like busywork or some homework assignment. They make themselves feel guilty when they break their diet once or forget to go to the gym. And rather than get back on the horse (what's 1 or 2 days, or even a week lost in the context of a year?), they would rather ignore the discomfort of sticking to behavior change than actually feeling the joy of the results they have gotten for themselves. By the way no one is holding you to the commitments you make except you. So if you quit nothing happens, literally.

Wait, one thing does happen: you learn that you are someone who can't be self-directed when no one is watching you.

In other words, you find out that you are person that can't follow through on their own commitments. Don't like how that feels or sounds? Then do the plan. Don't like how that feels or sounds? Well then good luck amounting to anything more than the rat race, my friend. Because the exceptional professionals I know are the ones that can show up and deliver especially when they don't feel like it.

Why I like it: It helps me offload the mental power necessary to remember, find motivation for and actually enact the behavior change. I simply declare what I'm going to get done, create an action plan, input the time into my Google Calendar to do it and then let my calendar dictate what I should be doing. I just follow the plan without thinking and happen to get the results that I want. It's not rocket science. Over time (say 5-10 years) I'll probably think less about the planning (because I'll get better at it) which means that think even less about the "doing", which in turn can allow me to start dabbling in tremendous things before the age of 35. Things in the ilk of Laird Hamilton and Shai Agassi. Why? Because that's what I chose for my life.

My challenge to you is to go check out Chris Guillebeau's blog about How To Conduct Your Own Annual Review. In the comments, let me know some things that you are thinking about working on this year - I might borrow some to try on as I roll out the first draft of my 2011 Action Plan.

Cheers,

Travis