The Power of Each Other: Wellness and Well-Being
  • Home
    • About Laura
    • Contact Dr. Burlingame-Lee:
    • News!
  • Resources & FAQs
    • Resources
    • FAQs >
      • Coaching FAQ
      • DBT FAQ >
        • How does DBT work?
        • What are the goals in DBT?
        • How does a DBT Skills Training Group Work?
        • Assumptions about our participants
        • What are some problems that might come up?
        • DBT Skills 1: Introduction and Mindfulness
        • DBT Skills 2: Interpersonal Effectiveness
        • DBT Skills 3: Emotion Regulation
        • DBT Skills 4: Distress Tolerance, Part 1
        • DBT Skills 5: Distress Tolerance, Part 2
      • Payment and Insurance
      • First Appointments: What to expect >
        • What to expect at your first coaching appointment
        • What to expect at your first therapy appointment:
    • Forms
  • Blog: Posts for the Journey
    • Blog Survey!
  • Love the Questions Journal Prompts

Achieving Goals: Action Planning

1/4/2016

0 Comments

 
So, interestingly enough, I fell off the wagon in regard to blogging. It’s ironic that just as I was talking about goals and achieving them, I did not achieve mine! This is a great opportunity, though, to emphasize the action planning and commitment needed. How DO we create an action plan that is realistic and achievable?

After you’ve identified and come up with strategies (your “coulds”), your next step is categorize them. I recommend keeping it simple, so I use three basic piles:
  • Probably won’t work, not as important, unrealistic, or not achievable
  • Might work, likely to be realistic or achievable, and is kind of important
  • Likely will work; definitely would be realistic and achievable and is important
Picture
Petr Kratochvil, Hand Holding Laptop, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=1820&picture=hand-holding-laptop&large=1
Take your strategies and sort them. If you’ve have between 1 and 5, look at the most likely and then rank the rest down from there. Your top two would be the strategies to focus on. Once you’ve identified the strategies that will have the best chance of helping you, take each one and figure out exactly how to do it. What if all your strategies are in the likely/important or might/kind of important categories? Prioritized them according to the important piece. They may all be good, and may all help you achieve your goal – but they also might not be as necessary right now as are others.

Some of my strategies included looking at different types of blogging, identifying places in my schedule that would work for writing, looking at blog planning tools, listing topics I wanted to write about, researching them, and making a schedule for the process. So, the goal I’d been working on was actually writing blog posts, and all these strategies are pretty realistic and achievable. However, my goal revolved around actually creating content, so some of these strategies can be placed on the back burner for now.

Prioritizing these strategies can be difficult – you may have trouble and think, “But they’re all important!” They are, and that’s where looking at what you have to do first comes in. They are still important – they just have to come after the first level in order for me to realistically achieve them well. Prioritizing these “coulds” for my goal leads to the following priorities:
  • Probably not as important right now: looking at different types of blogging
  • Kind of important: As much as I don’t like to put it here, actual scheduling is a follow-up step to the necessary early steps as is researching my chosen topics. Why? I have to have the others first in order to do these.
  • The most important “coulds” right now involve preliminary steps: listing topics, getting a planning tool, and identifying places in my schedule for writing.

Next step? What comes first? In my case, listing topics. I need to have an idea of what I want to write about, and what I need to do to break it into discrete blog topics. Next would be getting a planning tool, which would help me schedule and analyze what I need to do to be effective. Once these are taken care of, the I can move to the next level – the “not as important” category.

At the next level, the first thing to do would be to actually schedule time to plan and write. Once that piece is in there, then I can move on to the next step, researching the topics. Here is an area where I could break down the step into smaller, more achievable steps. Research one topic at a time, and focus on that topic alone until I’m finished with it. Then, I can move on the next.
These preliminary strategies lead me to the final steps in my goal: actually writing. At this point, I again break down the tasks:
  • Organizing the material into a coherent and discrete “chunk,” breaking the topic into smaller pieces if it’s very broad or detailed (such as goal setting!)
  • Writing a rough draft – if I want the post to be good, putting out a hastily put together post with errors and disorganization will not help me.
  • Editing the draft
  • Adding in extras – pictures, files, etc.
  • Final proofing – double and triple checking for errors, cohesiveness and appearance
  • Post the blog entry

You’ll notice that in listing these tasks, I also ranked them in the order in which they needed to be done. When you reach the final action-planning steps, this piece is easier, because you’ve already done a lot of it in the earlier planning.

​So, what’s next? The really good, juicy part – taking action!! Here is where we get down and dirty with actual work. This is where we commit to what we’ll do and actually do it. Getting it done – coming up in the next post!
Disclaimer: The information and content of this blog are not meant to constitute therapy or therapeutic advice. If you are in need of help or think you’d like to talk to a counselor or psychologist, there are many available to help. If you are in a crisis, emergency or life-threatening situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room. You’re not alone, and there are people who care and want to help. Calling 911 or going to your emergency room is not weakness; it’s a sign of strength.

If you are interested in therapy with Dr. Burlingame-Lee or have questions for her, please call (970) 776-6043 or contact her via: thepowerofeachother@outlook.com. 


All information and content on this blog is 
© 2016 by Dr. Laura Burlingame-Lee, Ph.D. dba "The Power of Each Other." For inquiries regarding reproduction or use for any purpose please contact me at (970) 776-6043.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Laura Burlingame-Lee:

    I am someone who thoroughly loves life and believes in the power we have to help each other. I think that having a hot cup of tea, a good book, and a warm, purring kitty are some of the most soothing experiences available in life, and loving my family, hearing the sound of children laughing, feeling rain on my skin, and smelling the salt air by the ocean are some of the best possible things in life! 

    I believe we all have inner wisdom, and that learning to listen to it is one of the hardest and most rewarding things we can do. I believe we all have gifts and talents to share, and that we have the opportunity every day to learn something new. We learn, we grow, and we shine!


    I'd love to hear from you!

    Need to find something? Search the blog:
    View my profile on LinkedIn

    RSS Feed

    Home

    Archives

    August 2022
    July 2022
    September 2017
    August 2017
    January 2016
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Acceptance
    Accountability
    Accountable
    Accreditation
    Accredited
    Achievement
    Achieving
    Action
    Action Planning
    Active Trust
    Affirmation
    Affirmations
    Afraid
    Alone
    Anger
    Angry
    Antidepressant
    Antidepressants
    Anxiety
    Appointment
    Appointments
    Art Journal
    Assertive
    Assertiveness
    Attitude
    Beck
    Behavior
    Black Or White Thinking
    Boundaries
    Boundary
    Care
    Caring
    Cat-I
    CBT
    Certification
    Certified
    Chain Analysis
    Change
    Changing
    Checking In
    Check-ins
    Choice
    Choices
    Coach
    Coaches
    Coaching
    Code Of Ethics
    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Insomnia
    Cognitive Distortions
    Cognitive Errors
    Cognitive Triad
    Comfort
    Comfortable
    Commitment
    Commitment Planning
    Commitment Strategies
    Compassion
    Compassionate
    Compassionate Detachment
    Control
    Controlling
    Copeland
    Coping
    Coping Skills
    Counseling
    Counselor
    Counselors
    Courage
    COVID
    Cruelty
    Daily Hassles
    DBT
    Depressed
    Depression
    Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
    Dichotic Thinking
    Differences
    Discomfort
    Distorted Thinking
    Distraction
    Distress Tolerance
    Dream
    Dream Analysis
    Dreaming
    Dreams
    Dream Symbols
    Effective
    Ellis
    Emergency Room
    Emotion Regulation
    End
    Ending
    ER
    Ethical
    Ethics
    Ethics Code
    Evaluating Goals
    Fear
    Forgive
    Forgiveness
    Frustrated
    Frustration
    Fun
    Goal Planning
    Goal Progress
    Goals
    Goal Setting
    Goal Strategizing
    Grief
    Happiness
    Happy
    Heal
    Healing
    Health
    Healthy
    Helpless
    Helplessness
    Hero
    Heroes
    Hopeless
    Hopelessness
    Hospital
    Hospitalization
    Hotline
    Hotlines
    Hurt
    ICF
    Identity
    Image Rehearsal Therapy
    Insight
    Insightful
    International Coaching Federation
    Interpersonal Effectiveness
    Introversion
    Irrational Beliefs
    Irrational Thinking
    IRT
    Journal
    Journaling
    Joy
    Judgment
    Judgmental
    Letting Go
    Licensed
    Licensure
    Loneliness
    Lonely
    Mean
    Measurable Goals
    Medical
    Medication
    Mindfulness
    Minimization
    Mistrust
    Mood Stabilizer
    Mood Stabilizers
    Motivate
    Motivation
    Move
    Moving
    Moving On
    Negative Thinking
    Negative Thinking Patterns
    New Normal
    No
    Nonjudgmental
    Nonjudgmental Stance
    Obstacles
    Opposite Action
    Organization
    Organizing
    Overgeneralization
    Pain
    Painful
    Personality
    Personalization
    Plan
    Planning
    Play
    Playful
    Playing
    Positive Psychology
    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
    Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
    Precipitating Event
    Prioritize
    Prioritizing
    Process
    Process Writing
    Procrastination
    Progress
    Prompting Event
    Psychologist
    Psychologists
    PTSD
    Rabbit Hole
    Radical Acceptance
    Reaching Goals
    React
    Reacting
    Reaction
    Reinforce
    Reinforcement
    Relationship Skills
    Relax
    Relaxation
    Resiliency
    Resources
    Responding
    Responsibility
    Responsible
    Rest
    Restful
    Resting
    Results
    Reward
    Rewards
    Role Play
    Role-play
    Sadness
    Safe
    Safety
    Saying No
    Schedule
    Self Acceptance
    Self Assurance
    Self Awareness
    Self Care
    Self Control
    Self Esteem
    Self Liking
    Self Soothing
    Self-soothing
    Setting Goals
    Should
    Shoulds
    Skills
    Solitude
    Stigma
    Stigmatize
    Stigmatizing
    Stinking Thinking
    Stop
    Stopping
    Strategies
    Strategizing
    Strategy
    Suicidal
    Suicidal Feelings
    Suicidal Thoughts
    Suicide
    Suicide Hotline
    Suicide Hotlines
    Support
    Supporting
    Supportive
    Taking Action
    Task Management
    Termination
    Therapist
    Therapists
    Therapy
    Thinking
    Thinking Patterns
    Thoughts
    Time
    Time Management
    Tough Times
    Trained
    Training
    Transition
    Transitioning
    Trauma
    Traumatic
    Traumatized
    Trigger
    Triggers
    Trust
    Trust The Process
    Uncomfortable
    Visual Journal
    Voice
    Vulnerability
    Vulnerability Factors
    Wellness
    Wellness Action Recovery Plan
    Wise Mind
    WRAP
    Write
    Writing

Proudly powered by Weebly