Coaching practices for Plan You Can Stick with
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Plan You Can Stick with, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve got a perfectly good plan sitting there, but the important stuff never has an actual slot on my calendar
- It’s always the same thing that knocks me off
- My plans always assume a good day, and then the predictable thing happens
- My plans hold up fine until something throws them off
- I tend to figure out my plan the same morning I’m supposed to start, in a rush to just get going
Practices that may help
- Chunk and schedule time for key results
Block specific chunks of time for the actions in your MAP and protect them as non-negotiable.
Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM), Made Practical - Use if–then commitments for predictable barriers
Pre-plan your response to the specific situations most likely to derail the action.
Committed Action, Made Practical - Pre-identify your temptations before writing the contract
Knowing specifically when and how you’ll be tempted lets you write a contract that covers those scenarios.
Commitment Contracts, Made Practical - Plan for obstacles with coping plans
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
Action Planning - Separate the planning session from the execution day
Do your planning in a dedicated session, never on the day you intend to start.
The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong - Review and update action plans at a fixed weekly cadence
An action plan that is not reviewed weekly becomes stale — regular review keeps the plan matched to current reality.
Action Planning - Review and update your conscious spending plan annually
Treat your plan as a living document that reflects who you are this year, not who you were.
Conscious Spending Plan, Made Practical - Choose reasonable over rational
A plan you can stick with beats an optimal plan you’ll abandon.
The Psychology of Money, Made Practical - If–Then Planning, Made Practical
If–then plans (also called implementation intentions) specify in advance how you will respond to the specific situations that typically derail your goals: "If situation X occurs, then I will do Y." A meta-analysis of 94 studies found a medium-to-large effect on goal attainment — one of the most reliable single techniques in goal-setting research. - Make the evening list a non-negotiable daily ritual
The method only works consistently when the evening planning step is a fixed daily habit, not an occasional practice.
The Ivy Lee Method, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Habit Plan
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
Plan for obstacles with coping plans
- Trigger Plan
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
- Action Planning Cadence
Action planning — specifying when, where, and how you will execute a goal-directed behavior — is one of the best-supported techniques for closing the intention-behavior gap. Orbell and Sheeran’s research, along with Peter Gollwitzer’s work on implementation intentions, shows that forming specific plans reliably increases behavior over vague intentions alone, with meta-analytic effect sizes in the small-to-medium range.
- Action Planning On A Budget
Action planning — specifying when, where, and how you will execute a goal-directed behavior — is one of the best-supported techniques for closing the intention-behavior gap. Orbell and Sheeran’s research, along with Peter Gollwitzer’s work on implementation intentions, shows that forming specific plans reliably increases behavior over vague intentions alone, with meta-analytic effect sizes in the small-to-medium range.
- If Then Planning Habits
If–then plans (also called implementation intentions) specify in advance how you will respond to the specific situations that typically derail your goals: "If situation X occurs, then I will do Y." A meta-analysis of 94 studies found a medium-to-large effect on goal attainment — one of the most reliable single techniques in goal-setting research.
- When Where Plan
Specify exactly when, where, and how you will act — not just what you intend to do.
Write when, where, and how plans for every behavioral goal
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