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If you want it….you have to plan for it!It may be that 'Action Plan' feels like another dull word that your teacher or connexions adviser keeps going on about? They are very useful and essential in getting to where you want to be or what you want to do. They don't have to be about a 20 year plan, they can be used to help you achieve short term goals as well! |
Now it wouldn't be very effective if we looked at this problem like Austin Powers. In real life you can't achieve your mission by psychedelic dancing and the occasional "groovy baby…yeah!". You would need to think about what you have to do and how you are going to do it.
It's your action plan, so you can have anything you want in it, if it helps you achieve your goals. There are however some useful headings that you need to include to get you on the right track. These are :-
Aims : What do you want? You
can't plan for something unless you are sure about what you actually want. This
is why an action plan can be helpful. It might be that you have an idea about
what you want to do, but didn't realise what it involved. By writing an action
plan, you will have to find out how you will achieve your aim. It might be that
you realise you don't like what it involves. You have just saved yourself months
of wasted time and a huge panic when you have left it too late!
Remember, aims, like most action plans can be 'big' things or 'smaller' things.
For example, you might want to become a teacher eventually, so you could write
an action plan with all the steps to becoming a teacher. You can also take one
step at a time and have short term action plans where you plan for getting onto
a teacher training course, getting some classroom experience or even researching
the type of teacher you want to be. It's a good idea to look at your main aim
and by planning what that involves you can then make smaller action plans for
the bigger tasks in your plan.
Action: What are you going to do about it? Sometimes it seems really hard to do anything! You may have options or exams to take and everyone is asking you to make decisions and plan for your future. When you get to the point where you just want to emigrate to get away from the 'nagging' or the stress, an action plan can help you feel better (honestly!). When you look at your aim, it can feel like a huge task and quite overwhelming. By writing down the tasks and action you have to take, it can break it up in to smaller pieces that look far more achievable than the whole thing. It also makes you think about what you do actually need to do. Who are going to contact for information, what courses and qualifications do you need, where can you apply for this type of job….etc…etc!
Timescales: It's always good
to put a time limit on it! You need to think about timescales for two reasons.
Firstly, you need to make sure that you make the time to actually carry out
your action plan. If you put it to the back of your mind while you play on your
playstation 2 and watch tv you will find that time has run out and you haven't
done anything. Think about realistic deadlines for yourself and stick to them.
Seeing your future plan in black and white can help motivate you in getting
on with it!
You also need to make sure that your are not over enthusiastic! It's great if
you become interested in your plan, but you need to stay focused. If you spend
4 months on one of your action points, you will find that again, time has run
out and you still have 5 more points to carry out!
Review : You know what it's like. You and your mates plan a night out
together, you start off all planning to go to the cinema but end up in your
mates bedroom because you all couldn't get a lift. Things change! A plan will
not always stay the same whether you want it to or not! In your action plan,
give yourself some dates to look back at what has happened as you have worked
through your plan. Again, this will help you stay focused. You may find that
because of the information you were given in the first couple of action points
of your plan, you now need to rewrite some of the later points to include new
tasks and ideas. It doesn't mean that the plan hasn't worked, it means that
you are being flexible!
As you work through all of these headings and start carrying out tasks and
reviews, you can tick off what has been done. This is great way to show your
own progress with your plan. The more you tick off, the nearer you are getting
nearer to your aim!
It can help you get what you want for your future. This could be choosing your options, taking your GCSE's / A Levels, getting on a course or training programme, getting a job or planning a career. It's not just about career plans, you can even use it for school work like coursework projects or even fun stuff like planning day out with mates.
You can look at some examples of action plans on this site.
If you need any help with action planning, ask your teacher or connexions adviser who will be able to help you with further information on the web or in your local careers / connexions library.
Make a decision, plan for it and get it!
Good Luck
Jennie Glitherow
At school or college? Look out for
Jennie's future articles which we'll have here for the first Monday of each
month, and which we'll link to the best sites we can find on the Web. Why not
bookmark us now?
To get back to this page to use the
links on it - enter http://www.careers-gateway.co.uk/mainpage.htm
and click on Magazine then Get planning!
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