Developing your action plan
It is all very well having goals, but for them to have a high chance of success it is important to have a clear plan to follow. This does not mean you can’t change it later – everyone’s circumstances change – but it will help to keep you on track.
One effective approach to developing an action plan for learning might be as follows:
- setting yourself a goal to work towards
- working out what you need to do before you can achieve your goal – breaking the goal down into smaller chunks until you get to a point where you think, ‘Yes, that’s manageable. I feel I could tackle that.’
- putting the steps in a logical order – some will be dependent on others having been completed first, while some will be more flexible and can be completed at any time
- putting a timetable next to each step to spur you on to achieving that step.
You have already chosen your goal, so working out the ‘smaller chunks’ is the next logical stage. To help you think about this, consider Mon Mon’s story:
Mon Mon hasn’t worked for a long time because she has been looking after her children. She likes helping her children with their homework and thinks she would like to be a teacher. Mon Mon has no experience or qualifications for teaching, so her ‘smaller chunks’ include finding out what is involved – identifying what qualifications she needs and how she could acquire them, preferably in her home town so that she has the support of friends and family while she does it – and working out the finances. She also has a short-term goal of getting some work experience to help decide whether being a teacher would be as fulfilling as she hopes.
Did you notice that the steps she plans to take are designed around her own personal qualities, skills, knowledge and resources? Yours should be, too.
So now the next stage for you is to break your goal down into manageable steps – ones that fit with your personal qualities, skills, knowledge and resources and that you can tick off individually along the way.
Activity 1.4 Steps along the way
Revisit your goals from Activity 1.2 and try to think of at least three steps along the way to achieving one of these goals. The first one should feel like something you can really do in the very near future. Each step might depend on you completing the one before, or it may be free-standing.
Now you have all the information for drawing up an action plan for your chosen goal: your SMART goal itself, several steps along the way (preferably SMART too) and you should also have identified all the key helping and hindering factors related to your goal. So, let’s go!
Activity 1.5 Your action plan
Start a new page in your learning journal and lay out your action plan with the following headings.
My goal:
Date to achieve by:
Steps along the way (with dates):
Factors that should help:
Factors that might hinder:
How I might deal with the hindrances: (Don’t forget to think about all the resources available to you, to help you address any hindrances.)
(You might even want to sign it – as a commitment to yourself!)
You now have a detailed plan for achieving your chosen goal. Make a point of checking off each of the steps of your action learning plan as you complete them. By doing this, you will be engaging in the process of collecting evidence of your achievements, which can:
- really boost your confidence and motivation
- help you to develop your CV when you are applying for paid or voluntary work.
It is a good idea to continue to use a learning journal as you work on developing your action plan and as you learn. It can help you look backward by reflecting on your thoughts, feelings and actions about new activities you have tried, and look forward by developing your ideas and plans for new learning experiences.
Sometimes just the act of writing things down can clarify your ideas, and writing down your thoughts and feelings about your learning is valuable in itself – helping you to get things off your chest, to remind yourself to look for solutions to any problems and to celebrate successes.
You have now reached the end of Week 1. Next week you will be finding out about the skills you need to be effective in a digital world: from improving what you do online and the way you do it, to finding information, communicating and collaborating with other people. You will also be given an opportunity to assess how confident you are in a range of skills. Are you ready?
If so, continue to Week 2 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
Examples of SMART goals