Resolutions are easy to make but difficult to keep. Plans, on the other hand, can be more complex to set up but also more useful in actually getting to your goal.
A resolution is a statement. “This year I resolve to gain weight.” That’s a typical resolution. But it’s unlikely to work (or for me, exceptionally easy).
You can train your pet ocelot to play the piano or to do any other thing. You’ll just need a plan. A plan has steps, details, goals, and a picture of what success actually looks like. If you’re planning for a piano-playing ocelot, you’re first step might be “find our if it’s safe to introduce wild cats to Bach.”
A good plan is easy to start. Try this method that you can create on a single sheet of paper. For any plan you just need to know what you want to happen, where you are today, and a rough idea of how you’ll do the thing. Your first step might be to “find out how to do this thing” or “decide if this is a good thing to do.” But it’s a plan. You can work with a plan. And that’s today’s assignment.
For today’s assignment, take one of your New Year’s resolutions and write a plan to actually accomplish what you’ve resolved to do.
Your plan should include a clear statement of what your goal is and how you’ll know when you’ve achieved it, an assessment of where you are today in relationship to your goal, and enough steps to see how you’ll get from where you are today to where you want to be.
Don’t worry about every single detail. Make your initial plan about big steps and the shape of how you’ll do this thing. For this assignment your goal should be that you could hand this plan to someone else and when they read it they’ll agree that your plan can work.
For bonus points, write a short plan for each of your resolutions.
Google+
Randy MurrayWriting Assignment: Turn A Resolution Into A Plan by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
