Taking Action - Part III in the "Goals and Dreams" Series

We last wrote about communicating our intentions to the right group of stakeholders to garner support for our dreams and visions. By deliberately reaching out and engaging those supporters of yours, you build a network of accountability that supports your intentions. While it's wonderful to have that external support, how do you hold yourself accountable? Action Planning and accountability will be the focus for this portion of the series.

When my husband and I started our business in 2002 where I could do my consulting, we were excited to build something that had flexibility, a degree of freedom, and a way to give back what I had learned over my years in corporate. We set out to establish our LLC, and begin networking and telling the key stakeholders about what I was doing to fulfill on this intention.

Marketing mode was great because it required very little accountability on my part - at least for the part of networking. I found it quite easy and enjoyed meeting up and having lunch with colleagues to discuss our lives and business in general. However, as the work began to come in, I had to find a way to manage my time and hold myself accountable to the business development, marketing, and delivery portions of the business. It was exciting and overwhelming.

I hired a Personal Coach who helped me build an accountability model for myself of weekly action plans and checklists. For about a year my coach was the one I was accountable to while I built up my own internal accountability mechanism. We developed a planning tool that highlighted my annual goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, and then the daily activities that I needed to do to manage all of this. I grew this tool to include my personal mission statement (thank you Steven Covey) as well as my personal goals as these are part of all of my activities and affect my actions. I still use this one sheet of paper to outline my actions every Sunday. I cross the items off the list as I complete them, and feel happy to be completing the most important as well as the urgent items.

This tool worked well for me and was fairly easy to develop - once I knew my goals, dreams, intentions and had communicated those. There are plenty of tools you can use to hold yourself accountable - iPhone, Microsoft Outlook with Tasks and Calendar options, or a Planner or Organizer. Whatever tool you choose, the most important part is to be sure that it is designed to hold you accountable to your true intentions - those you commit to fulfilling. If you fail to add these intentions, the tool won't be useful and you lose the method of holding yourself accountable.

If you want support in building action plans or an accountability tool, just reply to this post and I am happy to help. Have fun with your dreams - turn them into intentions, communicate them to your universe, and build supporting action plans and accountability mechanisms. Watch your dreams come to life through these simple, effective steps.


Question to Ponder: What actions should be in my "Weekly Action Plan" that will lead me to fulfilling on my intentions? How would I best hold myself accountable? Who should help me develop my own accountability model - a friend, coworker, family member, personal coach?

Communicating & Action - Part II in the "Goals and Dreams" Series

We last wrote about turning our intentions into reality through the dreaming and visioning processes. Then committing to those dreams that we really intend on fulfilling. Finally, turning those dreams into actions to allow you to step into what there is to do that ultimately leads to satisfied results.

These are not new topics by any means, and plenty of authors have written about and coached people on how to turn dreams into reality. Our series is a bit of a refresher - a reminder if you will - for those that already know how to do this - yet aren't seeing results... Consider the things you been "trying" to get done, yet aren't for some reason. Bring those into your mind as you read through this section.

Now, assuming that you already have an idea of your intentions - what do you need to communicate? If you have addressed your own commitment level and firmly believe that this is a true intention worth acting upon, then write down the list of those you need to communicate with. This is your "stakeholder" list that we spoke of in our Engaging blog last month. Consider what support you need from each stakeholder. What is in the way with any particular stakeholder that might prevent you from communicating your intentions? Is it a perceived resistance to your intention? Or, do you just need courage to speak out loud what you really want with this person?

Just as there is power in the spoken word, there is power in the written word. Write down your thoughts on what and who you need to communicate to. Simply keeping it in your head will not deliver results. That may be what has stopped you to this point on the intention you have been considering.

As you assemble your communications list, what key actions need to be taken initially to fulfill on your intention? Write those down so you can be clear with your stakeholders what your plans are. You don't have to know everything five years out (though some of you may already as result of your individual personality and style) but know the key next steps you want to take.

Now - begin making phone calls, scheduling time to meet, and planning your communications with your stakeholders. These are the people in your universe who know you, love you, want to know and love you, and will support you in fulfilling on your intention. Don't be afraid to hear what they have to say about your desire - take it in and modify your initial plans as a result. Don't let honest feedback make you lose sight of your intention - use honest feedback as the mechanism to course correct in your planning. Beware the voice in your head that wants to throw it all away based on the negative - turn it around and use that to your advantage.

Communicating your intentions and gaining support from your universe is the second step in realizing your dreams. The third step is Action Planning and includes accountability to yourself and your stakeholders. We'll provide that foundation in Part III. Until then - get out and communicate - discuss, listen and correct - and begin to fulfill on those intentions!


Question to Ponder: Is there an intention that you want to fulfill but haven't? What communications are in the way - or what communications have you received that squashed that intent? How can you restart that effort in a corrective way to fulfill on that intention?