This is the fourth (and last) part of a series of posts explaining the most powerful model I use with my life coaching clients. Read The GROW Model – Introduction to find out what it’s all about.
Alright! It’s time to take all the planning you’ve done so far, and use it to make your ideal goal a reality!
In this part, we’ll focus mainly on how to make sure you take action, once you decide what you want to do. Because it would be a shame to figure out exactly what you want, what needs to happen to get there and come up with many great ways to move towards it… only to fall victim to procrastination.
Luckily, I have a quite a few tricks up my sleeve to help you with this one 
How to pick the actions you want to take
I assume you have a big list of possible actions to take, from GROW #3 – Options.
I’ll leave you to pick which actions to take. You are the most qualified person to decide which ones you want to take, and which ones make you feel “meh”.
But I’ll give you a few pointers, to make sure you maximize your chances of getting them done.
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Firstly, do not pick too many actions at once. That can easily leave you feeling overwhelmed, and increases your chance of procrastinating.
Instead, here’s what I propose. Pick three actions from your list:
- one that you can take action on within the next 24 hours (ideally immediately)
- one that you can take action on within the next 48 hours
- one that you can take action on within the next week
And set a deadline, a week from now, right down to the minute, by which you will have accomplished all of them.
Once you have more experience with goalsetting, and getting things done (or right now, if you already do), you will be able to tweak this model. Sometimes you might choose more than three actions to accomplish in the next week, because you will know how much of what type of action will not leave you overwhelmed. Sometimes you might pick a longer deadline than a week.
But unless you have loads of experience with goalsetting, I suggest you follow the THree-Action-Week. (Or THAW. Hey, I just came up with that! 
)
Because having three actions that you will definitely accomplish is much better than having six that you will maybe accomplish.
Go ahead, pick your three actions from your list now!
How to massively increase your chances of getting it done
Okay, what I will share with you now is probably the second most important thing you can do with regards to the GROW Model. (right after deciding to grab a pen and paper at the beginning, and writing down your goals and ideas.)
Because no matter how much you plan and daydream, your life will stay exactly the same until you take action to change it!
What follows is a list of time-proven ways to massively increase your chances of actually taking those actions you picked!
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- Apply the Pain and Pleasure Principle
This involves racking up the perceived pleasure of taking action and the perceived pain of not taking action.
Just take some time to imagine how awesome your life will be in the future, after you have consistently taken action to improve the chosen area of your life. Then imagine how you would feel if you didn’t take any action – the same old situation, the same old pain, dragging on for years…
Your emotional mind will never respond to logical reasons, but it responds very readily to vivid imagination. And since motivation comes from your emotions, the Pain and Pleasure Principle is hands down the most direct way to kick up your motivation!
- Make your goals public
Share your goal and the actions you want to take on twitter. On your blog, if you have one. On facebook. Tell your friends.
This way, you will have the public pressure on you if you fail… but also the celebration and joy of your friends and acquaintances when you succeed!
(Update: Some people claim that making your goals public is actually counter-productive, because talking about your goals gives you the illusion of doing something and reduces your drive to actually do something. So… it works for me, but your mileage may vary.)
- Get a “GROW-buddy“
One of the many things I provide my life coaching clients is accountability. Knowing that once they’ve agreed to take action, I will be there, making sure they take it. Holding their hand when it needs holding and kicking their ass when it needs kicking.
So here’s my suggestion. Get a friend (or several), and send them the link to The GROW Model – Introduction. Let them read through the whole thing, and if they’re interested, let them set their own goals, and then you can keep each other accountable!
This is hands down one of the most effective ways to get motivated and stay motivated, so if you’re going to apply one single idea from this list, make it the GROW-buddy system!
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- Write down your goals and keep them in a prominent place
If you see your goals several times each day, they will get drilled deeper into your subconscious, and you will have a better chance of taking action on them. It helps you keep your mind on exactly when the next convenient time take each of your chosen action is.
- Take the first action immediately
And finally, a simple but surprisingly effective advice. Taking action is a habit… and often the most important step is breaking through the activation energy and taking the first step. After that, keeping your momentum going is comparatively trivial.
So if you have any action on your list from the Options phase that you could take immediately, do it!
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What to do next
Okay, this brings us to a close. I hope you got a lot of good information out of this series, and will use it for years to come to improve your life!
Now that you’ve finished reading through this, it’s time to go through all the exercises (if you haven’t yet). Then make sure you get your actions done within the next week.
Secondly, I would appreciate if you send a link to this series to any of your friends who you think might benefit from it. I’m looking to get this good information out to as many people as possible.
And lastly, if you can share the GROW Model on twitter, I would much appreciate it!
That’s all, and may your life GROW towards a fulfilling and exciting future!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
hey…i had signed up for your anti procrastination mini course…the pain pleasure principle(day 2) did wonders for me!!…making work fun(day4) WORKS ridiculously much better..thank you very much!!
great posts Vlad! I love the GROW model, and this was basically what you did with me when you did life coaching with me.
What I reeeally want to know though is what’s your dynamite that is more explosive than polyphasic sleep that you cryptically referred to a few posts back??
It must be seriously good!
David Lawson´s last post ..Critical Thinking Opportunity
@Rahul:
Glad you like it!
@David:
Well, firstly I called it “comparable”, and secondly, it hasn’t turned out as awesome as polyphasic sleep, unfortunately. (Partly because I didn’t give it my 100%, but more on that later.)
On the bright side, I will be posting the results soon, and even more awesomely… I will announce that I will be switching to polyphasic sleep later this year!
So stay tuned
Hi Vlad,
What a great method, thank you! I’ve been following your wonderful GROW model and I was doing fantastic, but today I’ve got trapped with my old pattern.
I don’t seem to be able to narrow down my options to actions. I tend to continue brain storming forever… Any suggestions?
Misako´s last post ..misakouroco- Good night and thank you for fun tweeting!
Well…hardly anything could beat polyphasic sleep!
I’m still interested in doing poly sleep too, and at some point soon I’m going to have another crack at it.
David Lawson´s last post ..Critical Thinking Opportunity
My main problem with poly sleep is how do I get through days 2-4? I found that really difficult; my guess is that I need to find someone to do the adjustment process with. Then it would be doable.
David Lawson´s last post ..Critical Thinking Opportunity
@Misako:
I’d suggest you pick one action from your whole list that you can today, and do it as soon as possible. Getting started is one of the most crucial steps, maintaining the momentum is comparatively easy
If this doesn’t work, get back to me. There are plenty of other things (that work much more reliably, but also require more thinking and understanding) you can do. I’ll be happy to share them with you.
@David:
I’ve thought about that too. I’m planning to:
- let everybody I know know that I’m doing it
- have loads of movies and TV shows to kill time with (since I won’t be able to think much during the switchover)
- make a list of many many actions to do (cleaning up and stuff. I haven’t thought about it much yet.)
- maybe find something that’s not very mind-intensive yet takes a lot of time, like a big puzzle (maybe 1000 pieces?)
Have you got any other ideas on how to make the switchover easier?
Good ideas Vlad.
My main problem is getting up, I have plenty of things to do.
I have decided to start with everyman sleep schedule instead.
David Lawson´s last post ..Critical Thinking Opportunity
Sounds like a good plan!
I’ve actually been sleeping 2-3 times (including the core night) most days for years, I just never really thought of it as a special “sleep schedule”.
Your Fun Survey is done
Thank you for your previous advice, I picked one and it leads another, so, almost all knickknacks are done! Less clatter, Yay!! Thank you!
Now it’s time to face my real desire, I have no excuse. I think I feel some kind of mental block when I get to “what I really want” stuff. I tend to think about anything else, I feel like I’m getting small pebbles and don’t enough place for bigger rocks…
I appreciate your generosity, Vlad. Thanks in advance!
Hey!! I just did the amazing GROW model but somehow I found myself losing motivation when I made my goals public… Is it possible that some people find that useful while some others just don’t?
Georgina´s last post ..Cambios- cambios
It’s definitely possible.
In fact, I heard about this effect before – it’s because when you talk about your goals, it gives you the feeling that you’re doing something about them. Whereas if you keep quiet, you need to actually, you know, do something to get the feeling that you’re doing something.
For me personally, making goals public works because then I feel a bit of external pressure not to disappoint people if I get sidetracked. But your mileage may vary.
(Cheers for the input, by the way! I’ll add a note to the article.)
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