Which is a critical part of developing your action plan?

a. stating when and how often you will do the steps

b. identifying role models who achieved the goal

c. developing a plan b in case you do not succeed

d. evaluating your skills to execute the action plan

I do believe the answer is A. That is because when you state when and how often you will participate in your action plan, you basically are making a promise to yourself to reach that goal. It is critical to do that because then you know exactly what you will be doing, how you will be doing it, and when you will be doing it. Identifying role models is not critical because it often leads to decreased self esteem and an unrealistic goal that may make you feel worse about the whole plan to begin with should you fail to meet the standards that role model did. Developing a plan B is not critical because whose to say that the first plan will not succeed? That is basically accepting defeat before you have even tried and may actually trick you into thinking that plan A failed just to try plan B. Evaluating your skills is a good thing to do, but it is not a critical point in and of itself. You should make an action plan based on your skills already present rather than try to maintain a plan not customized to your specific needs and skills.