How to Make a Goal Action Plan for 2020

Welcome back to the Give Life in 2020 Planning Series! Today we are going to be talking about how to make a goal action plan for 2020.

If you’re just now joining us, today is the last day of our Give Life in 2020 Planning series.

You can checkout the previous posts in the Give Life in 2020 Planning Series below:

You’ve covered a lot of ground if you’ve made it this far in the series. Now it’s time to put an actionable plan together to complete your goals in 2020.

Today we’re going to be using our Goal Action Planning sheets from the 2020 Made to Give Life Seasonal Goal Planner.

Don’t have your 2020 Made to Give Life Seasonal Goal Planner yet? No worries! Click here to get your copy, then come back here and start with Part 1 of the series. I’ll be here waiting when you catch up.

The goal planning process I’m teaching you today can literally work for anything you want to accomplish.

From growing in gratitude in 2020 to taking better care of your health to starting a podcast to going on a mission trip, your Goal Action Planning page will help you.

How to Make a Goal Action Plan for Your 2020 Goals

1. Choose a goal to focus on first.

Look at the goals you’re choosing to focus on in 2020. You wrote them down yesterday.

Choose any one of them and put it at the top of your Goal Action Planning page.

2020 Made to Give Life Seasonal Goal Planner - How to Make a Goal Action Plan

2. Why do you want to accomplish this goal?

Write your WHY in the blank space under your Big Picture Goal.

Writing out your why will help you cement in your mind and heart that this goal matters to you.

When the going gets tough, when you’re tempted to quit, this WHY that you write down will remind you why quitting is not an option.

It can even be helpful to write a Scripture verse that has motivated you to set the goal in the first place in the space for your WHY.

3. Break your goal down into smaller goals.

Next, goals are nothing more than a series of small actions you need to take to make progress in the right direction.

So think about the action steps you need to take in order to accomplish this goal.

For example, if your goal is to start a women’s Bible study in your home, a series of small action steps might be:

Clarify my purpose for the Bible study
Determine what materials I will use
Make a list of women to invite
Talk to the church leadership for possible support/input
Fast and pray
Set a start date
Prepare my home

How to make a goal action plan for 2020.

Don’t worry about if the steps are written in the right order. Just write down any steps you need to take to accomplish your goal.

Once you’ve completed this step put your action steps in order. Just number them 1-7 (or ever how many action items you have).

For example:

Clarify my purpose for the Bible study – 2
Determine what materials I will use – 3
Make a list of women to invite – 4
Talk to the church leadership for possible support/input – 6
Fast and pray – 1
Set a start date – 5
Prepare my home – 7

This means “fast and pray” is the first step I need to take to accomplish this goal, then I can clarify my purpose for the Bible study and determine what materials I will use.

4. Set a timeline for completing your goal.

Next, write how much time each of these tasks will take. Or you can also write when each task needs to be completed by.

Estimating how much time each task will take will help you set clear expectations and pace yourself.

It also gives you deadlines for completing each task so you can stay on track and keep moving forward on your goal.

I know when I had a goal of starting the Made to Give Life Podcast, it really helped to put a timeline together so I wouldn’t feel like I was “behind” in accomplishing the goal.

I started working toward launching the podcast in October, but I didn’t get to air the first episode until January. There were a lot of steps that included a lot of research! This took time!

Setting realistic expectations at the beginning helped me to keep going when it got tough, and it also helped me to stay on pace when I was tempted to slack off my progress.

Once you’ve made your Goal Action Plan, you can add these goal action items to the appropriate month’s goal action sheet.

I like to use sticky notes to add the action items to my planner. This way I have the liberty to change my mind, accomplish things faster or slower, etc. without “messing up my planner.”

Now repeat this process for each of your goals on your list for 2020.

Thanks for joining me for the Give Life in 2020 Planning Series.

Be sure to keep an eye on your email for monthly coaching emails to guide you through going though your planner throughout the year.

I pray you can continue to be intentional, rely on grace, and gift life each season throughout 2020!

If you missed any posts in the series you can catch up with the links below:

Don’t have your 2020 Made to Give Life Seasonal Goal Planner yet? Now is a perfect time to change that! Click here to get your Seasonal Goal Planner, and then come back here and go through the series with your planner in hand.

Not sure if you the Seasonal Goal Planner is for you? Not worries, click here to get all the details.