Making a plan is one thing—but learning how to stick to a plan is something else entirely.
It isn’t necessarily easy to stick with and follow-through with a plan and succeed at it.
As humans, we tend to have limited attention spans.
The idea of staying consistent with an activity once it becomes slightly boring, mundane, challenging, or otherwise ‘less interesting’ is actually kind of difficult for us.
For this reason, a lot of people struggle to stick with plans once they’ve created them.
But this is obviously problematic.
If we want to succeed in this world, then it’s in our best interest to be able to stick with our plans for long enough to see them through to the ‘accomplishment’ stage.
And as I reflect back on my own experiences with plans and success, I realized that there were a few ‘common denominators’ that I picked up along my journey that always seemed to correlate very highly with a successful outcome.
So I decided to bring all of these steps together into one helpful guide—to show you my exact method for learning how to stick to a plan and succeed.
Let’s dive into it.
7 Simple Steps For How To Stick To A Plan
1. Make It A Priority Every Day
When you wake up in the morning, you always have a choice in what you’re going to focus on for that day.
Some people don’t make this an intentional choice.
However, it’s in your best interest to use this powerful morning energy to your benefit.
If you focus on the plans you want to accomplish, and you use that ‘morning energy’ to prioritize those plans and focus yourself for the day—you’re going to have a much better experience…
And you’re going to be much more likely to stick with your plans for the long term.
2. Write It Down Every Morning
Making your goal a ‘mental priority’ is one thing.
But writing it down, either on a piece of paper, on a goal-setting sheet, or even in a goal planner is really another level of commitment.
And this can give you a huge advantage in learning how to stick to a plan and follow through with it for the long run.
Science tells us that people who write down their goals are much more likely to achieve them.
This is a basic universal principle of success that I believe in 100%.
When you dream big dreams, turn those dreams into goals, and then write those goals down to create a roadmap to success. You give yourself the best potential odds of achieving the things you want to achieve.
Why Do I Struggle To Use A Planner?
Planners can be challenging to use if you’re not in the habit of using them.
In fact, waking up every morning and sticking with the habit of writing down your daily goals is an activity that isn’t always intuitively easy, depending on whether or not you’re dealing with any particular mental barriers.
I actually wrote an ebook on this topic that you can download for free in my Goal Setting Essentials Starter Kit.
This ebook, titled Goal Setting Secrets, will take you through all of the different mental barriers that can keep people from starting their own goal-setting habits—and it’ll show you how to move past them and become successful.
3. Write Down Your Long-Term Goals On A Daily Basis
In addition to planning your day and writing down the steps of your plan every morning, it’s also a great idea to revisit and write down your long-term goals.
Here’s the thing.
Writing down your plan for the day is an awesome way to get focused.
However, when you also write down your long-term plans, and you see how those short-term plans fit into your long-term goals, this can give you an incredible amount of motivation for your future—and this can help you to find the motivation to continue pursuing those plans on a daily basis.
As Zig Ziglar famously said:
“People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.”
4. Find An Accountability Partner
You’re much more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down on a daily basis.
However, you’re even more likely to succeed if you write them down and also find an accountability partner.
This is a crucial success principle that I highly recommend.
If you’re struggling to stay consistent with your daily plans, it’s always a good idea to find an accountability partner to help you stay focused and consistent.
5. Make Sure That Your Plan Is Measurable
Whenever you’re setting goals and learning how to stick to a plan, it’s important that you set those goals using the SMART goal-setting format—and part of this means that you want those goals to be specific and measurable.
In other words, instead of saying:
“I’m going to do some work on my side hustle today.”
It’s in your best interest to get more specific and measurable with the amount of work you plan to do.
For example, instead, you could write down:
“I’m going to spend one hour working on my side hustle business today.”
This leads to a more structured goal.
6. Meticulously Track Your Progress
Whenever you’re trying to achieve a plan, it’s in your best interest to track your progress on that plan.
In fact, this is so important that it’s one of the core principles of goal-setting theory.
Why?
Because as you see yourself making progress, you’ll get more motivated.
Plus, this will help you to figure out if you’re actually on track to accomplish the goal.
7. Reward Yourself When You Succeed
If you don’t reward yourself for making progress, accomplishing milestones, and achieving goals in the short term, then you may struggle to stay motivated in the long term.
Rewards don’t have to be extravagant or exorbitant.
They work just as well when they’re small and meaningful.
However, instituting this principle into your goal-setting practice can have far-reaching positive implications.
FAQs
Why can’t I stick to my plans?
It’s difficult for humans to stay focused on one thing for a long time.
And sometimes, when you’re learning how to stick to a plan, you’re going to find it difficult to ‘keep your eye on the prize’ for long enough to see the process through to the end.
This is a pretty normal human problem.
However, if you follow these 7 steps when striving to stick to a plan:
- Make it a priority
- Write it down every morning
- Write down your long-term goals every day
- Find an accountability partner
- Make sure that your plan is measurable
- Meticulously track your progress
- Reward yourself when you succeed
…you should be able to overcome this without much of an issue.
Obviously, it’s going to require some work—but it’s definitely worth it, in the end, to move your goal forward and achieve the plans you’ve laid out for yourself.
Why is it so hard for me to stick to a goal?
It’s hard to stick with a goal because goals require us to do work and perform functions that may not always necessarily be fun, interesting, or intrinsically motivating.
A lot of the time, when we set goals, they’re going to require us to do stuff that we may not otherwise choose to do.
Obviously, it’s for a greater purpose—and it’s good for our lives to perform this work and stick to the plan.
But this can make it difficult to stick with it for the long term.
What does it mean to stick to your plan?
Sticking to your plan simply means this:
That you’re going to continue to work on it until you get it accomplished.
Keep in mind that this doesn’t have to be a perfect process.
You may miss a day or two simply from finding it hard to focus.
You may even be tempted to give up along the way, and you may take a day or two off just to mentally recover.
That’s okay.
The most important thing in such cases is to get back in the saddle and try again the next day.
Just stick with it and keep making that forward progress.
This is how to stick to a plan and succeed in the long run.
How do you maintain a life plan?
It’s important for all of us to have some kind of life plan for the future.
With that being said, this isn’t always an easy thing to figure out.
But in general, if you want to maintain your life plan, make sure that it consists of goals and plans that you care about and want for yourself.
When you engage your purpose and your passion to make a life plan, you’ll find that you’ll tend to be a lot more motivated.
And this is really a crucial element for maintaining such a plan in the long term.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has given you some useful information that’ll help you with the question of ‘how to stick to a plan,’ and how this can help you in your goal-setting and life-success journey.
Of course, at the end of the day, this is just another part of the larger, overarching process of turning your dreams into goals, and writing those goals down to create a roadmap for success in your life.
This is how you begin your journey to success and crush it.
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Now it’s time to get to work.
Best wishes…
Jay O’Donnell