It’s great having big goals but breaking big goals into small steps is the key to long term success. A big goal can give you vision and focus and the desire to succeed. But small achievable steps are where the “rubber meets the road”. Without action, large goals are just fantasy! A really big goal can inspire you into new action steps, but it’s the steps themselves which will carry you towards your destination.
Without goals you can easily fall into accepting the status quo and living your life as you always have. Life gets boring and drab when you have nothing to shoot for. But equally, a (too) large goal can put you off taking the required action if you don’t know how to proceed to make it a reality. Or, you can choose a goal which you don’t believe you’ll achieve. Whether your goal is too big or small is determined by whether it spurs you into action, or not. A goal which is too small is likely not going to motivate you. Why bother if you don’t care about the outcome? Whereas a too big goal might seem unobtainable, and result in a similar apathy.
So, before you break your big goals into smaller steps, it’s worth getting clearer on what your goals are; whether they properly motivate you and whether you will take consistent action towards them over a long time frame.
Breaking Goals Into Smaller Steps: Choosing Your Goal
The best book I’ve found on goal setting is Stuart Lichtman’s Cybernetic Transposition. In it he shares what he calls his cybernetic transposition three step process. You can get his book here. “Cybernetic” relates to the mind, or brain, and “transposition” relates to transposing something. In the case of goal setting, you’re transposing a memory in order to create a new goal.
But before you get to that stage, Stuart explains why your choosing of a goal is the most important part of the equation. Most people set goals and give up shortly afterwards. That’s often because they have chosen a goal which they don’t believe they can attain, or that they aren’t motivated enough to achieve.
What’s Your Best Goal?
In Stuart’s three step process he guides you through an exercise in which you can tune your goal into one which is super relevant for you. Your goal should score a 10 out of 10 for desirability and a 10 out of 10 for believability. If you don’t really want a goal, you’ll find reasons to quit. Likewise if you don’t believe in your goal, you’ll fail to achieve it!
One of the main problems with goals setting is that we have multiple parts of out mind competing for the outcome they want, instead of our main objective. For example, you choose to lose weight, but you still like pizzas and beer. Despite a strong resolve to lose weight by joining a gym and setting a diet, other competing parts of out mind sabotage our best efforts. Get Stuart’s book here!
Baby Steps
Another great book on this topic is Stephen Guise’s Mini Habits. There’s lot of good books on habits, but I like this one because it’s pretty simple and straight forward. The main theme of the book is to take your goal and break it onto such tiny, easily achievable steps that it would be possible to take a step each day, whatever happens. Even if you’re having a terrible day, suffering from depression, working long hours or whatever, your mini habit should be so infinitesimally small that you can still do it easily.
An example from the book is a daily push up. A push up isn’t hard to do and anyone who is able can make a daily habit out of doing a single push up. It only takes a few seconds to do. You might think, how is a daily push up going to get you to your goals? But use this as an analogy for your own aspirations. How can you take the idea of a daily push up, and use it for your longer term goals?
Power Of Tiny Steps
The push up won’t get you super fit, or get you on some magazine cover, if that’s your goal. However, what it does do is start the ball of momentum rolling in your favour. We are creatures of habit who carry a lot of momentum for the things we are already doing – or not doing. Making a daily habit out of something small is a lot easier than suddenly turning your life around after years of neglect!
Once in the push up position, you’re much more inclined to do two or three push ups, or even more, especially once you have made this part of your daily regimen.
Breaking Goals Into Smaller Steps – Motivation Doesn’t Work
If motivation alone worked we would all be super fit athletes with a million in the bank! We are all motivated to achieve things, get fit and have amazing lives, but it’s the daily habits which matter. It’s not the fantasies which we carry in our minds which we “hope” will happen that carry you towards your goals, it’s the things you do on a regular basis (which are aligned with your goals); your daily habits.
Motivation will get things going, but only so far. Your old habits, conflicting ideas and counter-intentions will limit you. This usually happens to the “New Year New You” crowd after they have signed up for a gym membership in January, only to find they no longer use it in March! Old habits win unless you install some new habits and ideas to help you win the battle!
To get the ball rolling, use Mini or Micro habits to help you overcome the momentum of older habits holding you back.
Big Goal, Tiny Steps
A big goal is really useful if it motivates and inspires you. But if it overwhelms you, you don’t really believe in it, or you don’t truly want it, it won’t help you. So getting clear on your goal is an important first step. But you also need an action plan you can follow so you can make daily progress towards your big goal.
Finding a tiny step gives you something you can actually do. Without something tangible you can take action on, your goal becomes only a fantasy. So instead of getting overwhelmed with the entire list of potential things you can do in the future, (which might carry you forward), focus only on what is immediately achievable right now, today.
A tiny step is much better than an endless wish list which never gains any traction.
Breaking big goals into small steps is one of the best things you can do if you’re looking to build an online income. For more information checkout this free video series.