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Note: This is Part 4 of a 7 part series. The rest of the series includes:

1. How to Make Lasting Changes
2. From Unconscious to Conscious
3. Contemplation & Procrastination
4. Preparation & Planning to Act
5. 3, 2, 1… Action!
6. Maintaining the Change
7. Summing it All Up

All lasting change starts with a plan. That plan can be a single thought (”I want to lose 20 pounds.”) or it can be a 500 page document. No matter how extensive, the act of creating a plan means that you’ve officially graduated to the Preparation stage of change.

Preparation is an important stage in the change process, but it is also fraught with danger. If you’ve ever been part of an organization that engages in endless planning with little or no action to show for it, you’ve seen the dangers of preparation first hand. It is very easy for the preparation to become the activity. This is a false gain because planning doesn’t actually change anything. Ideally, planning and preparation should take the very minimum time required to get to action, and not one second more. This post will teach you some strategies to continue advancing to the action stage.

Intention and Preparation

The preparation stage of change is officially the point at which a person or organization intends to take action toward a change in the very near future, or a maximum of one month. By the time this stage happens, the benefits of changing clearly outweigh the drawbacks. The person or organization also has a strong belief in their ability to change successfully. Most of the objections of the precontemplation and contemplation stages are gone. A mindset shift has occurred that makes change more attractive than the present situation.

At this stage, it is time to make decisions about what actions to take to create the desired change. For individuals this can be a very simple process, such as joining a health club. In a large organization, creating an action plan can take months or years, especially when the change is large scale. For example, the American military engages in strategic planning to determine where to put limited resources for the most efficiency. The process of deciding where to build new bases and which old bases to close can take years because of the complexity of the data and number of people that must be consulted. Fortunately, most changes are much more simple to plan!

Analysis paralysis can continue to be a factor in this stage. There are usually many possible ways to create change, and often one method is just as valid as another. It is possible to loose weight through either a high protein or a low fat diet. An organization could adopt flex time or remote work policies. Often the data available to inform a change is misleading, hard to obtain, or just plain contradictory (Atkins diet versus raw veganism anyone?). It is critical to remain focused on the desired change more than the path to getting there, or procrastination can again take over.

Just Enough Planning – Not a Bite More

So how do you move through preparation and into action in a way that honors the need to plan, but also overrides the tendency to over think? In brief: Don’t try to build the perfect plan. Good enough is good enough to get you started.

Since plans rarely work out the way they were written, it is not helpful to aim for perfection in any planning process. You can always test and tweak your plan as you go along, so the key is to just get started. Create the very roughest outline of a plan – draw it on the back of an old envelope if it helps – and then start acting on it. When you find flaws in the plan, simply adjust and keep moving. (We’ll discuss this more in the Maintenance stage of change, and you can also read my post How to Create a Theory of Change for more information on plan adjustment and reflection.)

Here are a few tips that will help you create a plan that is just good enough:

• Ready, Fire, Aim. In traditional planning, the temptation is to Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim… and never actually Fire! In this method, you act first and adjust later. Use the information you learned in the first acting phase to refine your approach. So what if your first attempt fails? The key here is to learn and keep trying.
• Think short term. It is easy to fall into thinking that a change has to be forever. It doesn’t, especially if thinking about permanency makes you feel like you’re sure to fail. Commit to acting on your plan for a week, a month, or a year – whatever feels manageable to you. After the end of your timeline evaluate your results and commit to more time if you want.
• Run an experiment. If you’re trying to lose weight, try going one week without eating desert and the next week try walking for 30 minutes each day. See which approach is more sustainable and/or gets better results for you. Continue tweaking your plan each week to achieve better results.

Staying flexible and being willing to change your plan, will help you power through the preparation stage of change. Realize that a plan isn’t a life commitment, that it is sure to have weaknesses, and will need adjustment over time. When you do this, planning can become a game rather than a matter of life or death, or failure or success. Minimizing planning time with get you through the Preparation stage and into the excitement of Action!

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