Some people fear that developing a detailed and specific action plan will tie them down too much and take away the flexibility to respond to changing demands or environmental barriers.  Not true!  An action plan actually maximizes your flexibility by clearly establishing your criteria for success which in turn creates the foundation for evaluation and revising.  But you have to start doing your plan!

As Chris says, don’t just be a planner – implement!  Don’t wait until you have the perfect plan of action before you start working on your strategies and tactics.  At some point, overplanning and overthinking simply become procrastination.  You can get bogged down trying to conceive of every need or negative scenario that may arise and how you might react.  But many needs won’t become evident until you are rolling along.  Most of the negative things we can dream up will not come to pass.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be surprises or obstacles along the way, but that’s why starting with your vision and goals is so important.  Your vision and goals are your safety net.  With a vision and goals, there is no such thing as failure in an action plan.  The strategies and tactics you take as part of your action plan are for the purpose of reaching your vision and goals – they are not the ends. 

If something goes wrong with one strategy or tactic, if circumstances change or the result isn’t what you intended, you fall back on the goals you are trying to achieve.  You have the freedom to retool your action plan and shift gears to achieve your goals.  You have flexibility!

On the flip side, and even more importantly, actually doing your action plan will give you a taste of success.  It will keep you wanting more!