5 Tips for Creating a Monthly Action Plan to Reach Your Goals

So, you’ve got your vision board filled with photos and you’ve decided on your business goals; now what?

Visualizing what you want in life is a wonderful practice but don’t forget about making an action plan to fulfill those goals.

Creating your monthly action plan doesn’t need to be a daunting task. Here are 5 steps to get you there.

1. Break down your ultimate goals into smaller steps. If you want to double your income, for instance, keep that big number in mind but break that big number down into a monthly income total. If necessary, break that down even further into weekly and daily goals. Knowing these smaller goals will help you focus on daily money-making tasks to earn those totals and ultimately reach that larger goal.

2. Plot your daily money-making tasks. No matter what your ultimate goals, you need to make money with your business and those are the tasks you should prioritize. What tools do you have at your disposal? Think about how to use your blog, social media, email list, affiliate products, JV products, courses, and coaching programs to make more sales. Sometimes all it takes is publicizing your offers more frequently via social media and to your email list. Try emailing your list more frequently. Be on the lookout for affiliate offers that are the perfect match for your customers. Create a group coaching program to attract more people. Don’t be afraid to sell.

3. Plan to outsource. Hiring independent contractors will free up time in your day as well as help you reach your monetary goals. Even if it seems counterintuitive – spending money in order to make money – your focus will naturally shift to delegator and you’ll get rid of the administrative tasks that keep you from producing products or creating new coaching programs. To make outsourcing worthwhile, interview candidates and have a firm idea of what types of tasks you’ll delegate each month. Finding that right person will make the backend of your business run smoothly and you’ll soon appreciate making that investment.

4. Track your progress. Don’t wait until the end of the year or the quarter to evaluate if you’re meeting your smaller goals. When you do your monthly bookkeeping is a great time for this evaluation or consider doing it weekly. Did you reach your daily and monthly goals? Did you have a couple of days where you doubled or tripled your goals? What was different? What did you do on those days? Try to replicate those actions in upcoming months. If you did NOT meet your goals, make changes to your plan and ramp up your actions the next month.

5. Document your action plan. Just because you come up with a great plan in your head doesn’t make it real. Putting information down on paper makes it real and easy to check if you’re following through. Trello is an online platform that allows you to make digital checklists (or boards) of all your tasks. Share your boards with your VA or simply make a board for her with her monthly tasks. Your VA could also create her own board that lists the different processes for doing her tasks, in case you ever need to hire another VA.