This is where far too many people fail. You probably have some experience of this with new year's resolutions. It's where CEO's fail in leading their organisations to achieve the corporate goals. Political leaders are especially prone to this failure to actually act on their promised vision… oh and they can come up with some of the most wonderful excuses and there is always someone else to blame. You too can inspire yourself with great rhetoric and end up not taking action.

Here we can learn much from the best athletic and sports coaches. Teams that win championships are coached by men and women who can articulate their goals, know every players' strengths and weaknesses, push for improvement, encourage and show everyone how to play strategically. If a coach doesn't inspire confidence and check progress, their players may never take action to better themselves or work to win and, as a result, nothing changes.

First you need a plan of action and then the personal commitment to make everything work. This is easier with a coach than doing it alone, though with some self-discipline, you can do it. If you are struggling in actually putting your plan into action, then find a coach or enlist a buddy. Buddying up with someone on the same or similar path is a huge help. Strangely, humans are excellent at letting themselves down but find it much more difficult to let others down (presumably excluding politicians).

You are now ready to bring all of these pieces together to create your plan. When done, you will have a comprehensive and measurable action plan to monitor your progress and fulfill your dreams.

If you have not taken our GAPPS4 assessment you will need to undertake a skills audit now to ensure that you know what you are good at currently and the areas that you need to develop. If you have taken our full GAPPS4 assessment, use the findings from this to identify your skill strengths and gaps. If you have a report and you want to use a different benchmark (because your career mission has changed) ask your coach for advice.

Remember to add the technical skills and knowledge you will need for your chosen career mission.

Review your SWOT and PEST weaknesses and threats. Do these point to skills that you need to develop to achieve your major career goals? Rate your current ability in each of these skills using a simple scale:

1. High Strength: Skills that I do very well and easily
2. Strength: I can do this and I can improve easily
3. Develop:  I need to improve this area

Then against each area, rate each skill area with how important it is for you to achieve your major career goal(s). Use the following scale:

1. Not very critical or important
2. Important
3. Very Important, critical

Then against each skill/ability/knowledge area, identify how easy it is for you to develop in this. Consider such matters as, cost of developing, time to develop, experience needed, access to development (tutors, coach, mentor, boss). Use the following scale:

1. Not easy (e.g. high cost, long time)
2. Reasonably easy
3. Very easy (e.g. I know much of this already or someone to help me)

When you have rated each one, multiply the scores with each other for each ability. The highest score using the scale is 9, the lowest 1.

A 9 is a critical development need that is easy for you to develop and should be a priority – work on these immediately, then deciding between ease of development and how critical that development is for your secondary priorities.