Setting Goals: Achieve Your Goals Through Smaller Steps
“The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” Lao Tzu
There can be many possibilities for the translation of this wisdom from Lao Tzu but for our purpose of it’s use for goal setting, I will state this: Every great goal, no matter how substantial or complex, starts as a very small accomplishment; a single step on which many other steps are built upon which ultimately manifest into greatness.
A single step, repeated over and over again, eventually turns into a journey; that of a thousand, if not a million miles. The choice is yours in how far you go.
Goal setting is no different. Breaking a big goal down into several small goals will like taking small steps on a journey.
I am a very big advocate of goal setting and I am even more adamant about writing your goals down. Amazing things happen when you physically put your goals down on paper and then start taking action toward their achievement. It seems as though strange things start to happen like synchronicities and serendipitous events.
Lets take a look at a few examples of goals that you may set for yourself and strive to achieve.
- Purchase plush new home
- Gain a big promotion at work with a hefty salary increase
- Purchase a shiny new BMW or Mercedes or any fine automobile for that matter
- Find the love relationship of your dreams
- Lose a certain amount of weight and get into good physical condition
- Quit your job and start your own business
These are all great goals to have since I am also a big proponent of “Thinking BIG” and everyone has different values in life so these may all seem a little diverse in nature. Nothing is too far fetched if you realize that setting extremely high goals and coming a bit shy will, in reality, get you much farther ahead than setting much lower goals and achieving them.
For the sake of example, and since I have helped countless individuals achieve goals similar to number 5 on the list, lets use that.
Lets say you have a weight loss goal of 50lbs. If you blindly set that goal and set off on your way to tackle that number you may be disappointed to find yourself come to a point where you become overwhelmed, lost in limbo, unmotivated and your progress comes abruptly to a halt.
That initial goal needs to be broken down into a systematic approach to be effective both physically and mentally. Steps need to be planned out on paper and taken to get there and each step must build upon the previous one. The big key here is to write it down!
Lets break this down. Here are the steps:
- Give yourself a realistic time limit in which to achieve this goal. If you have a deadline you will be much more motivated to be challenged to beat the clock. Our deadline here is 24 weeks.
- If we take our 50lb goal total and divide that by the number of weeks, we get a whopping total of 2.08lbs per week that we need to lose. This is looking very manageable right now and that makes a big difference on your mental state.
- Now we need to add a little action to the mix. What action do we need to take in order to make that 2lb weekly weight loss? You got it: exercise and proper diet. So now we need to calculate the number of days you’ll be pumping iron and hitting the pavement for some cardio. On top of this we’ll devise a smart plan of action for diet that you will be sticking to for the week.
- Since we now know what action we need to take we need to make an action plan for each and every day. You can purchase a daily planner or you can make a simple spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel to chart the small action goals for the day and tick them off as you accomplish them. Using our weight loss as an example you can chart things such as one hour of cardio first thing in the morning, 45 minutes of weight training, drink 1 gallon of water throughout the day, eat five small meals today consisting of x amount of vegetables and x amount fish etc. You get the idea.
If you focus on the small simple steps, which are your action goals, before you know it you will be miles and miles ahead. This simple approach to goal setting will get you farther ahead towards your achievements in less time than you ever expected. Give a go at it and you will be amazed!
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Tags: achievement, goal setting
Success is defined by many in so many ways. Many people define it by what the have yet to attain or by what others have attained. In the pursuit of success we often prostitute ourselves to many things we would eventually live to regret. We run miles down one street only to find we are completely lost.