The Power of Taking Small Steps to Achieve Your Goals
When my son was 11 years old, he was learning Beethoven’s Rondo in C Op. 51, №1 on the piano. It is an extremely challenging piece and was completely overwhelming for him. So his teacher took a piece of paper and covered all the notes expect for the 1st note. . She asked him to play that note, and he did. She then uncovered both the 1st and 2nd notes and asked him to play. She instructed him to go home and do the same thing, but only uncover the next note when he was comfortable with what was uncovered so far. He eventually successfully played the entire piece. If he had focused on the entire piece at one time, or even just that difficult section, he would have given up. However, focusing on one note at a time made it doable, and allowed him to accomplish what seemed impossible, one small step at a time.
Do you know why people fail at achieving their Goals?
They fail because they get overwhelmed and discouraged, like my son would have had he focused on learning an entire difficult piece of music, instead of focusing on one note at a time.
Whether it’s losing weight, exercising more, learning a new skill, saving money, getting organized, decluttering your home, or running a marathon; goals can be so overwhelming that people give up on them within a few weeks. They either get frustrated because they do not see immediate results, or they become paralyzed by the enormous amount of effort and time it will take and the anticipated challenges that will be faced along the way.
There is a BETTER WAY!
Break your goals into SMALL STEPS
If your goal is to declutter your home, you might start with decluttering one drawer in the kitchen. That’s it! After that drawer has been decluttered, pick another small step, such as one shelf in your closet. Break the goal into as many small steps as possible. Don’t worry about how long it will take to get you there…just focus on the NEXT SMALL STEP and recognize your accomplishments as you go. Before you know it, you’ll have completed what seemed like an impossible and overwhelming goal of decluttering your entire home.
Focus on making progress ONE DAY AT A TIME
If you are trying to lose weight, do not think about what you’re going to need to do over a 6-month period to make it happen. Just focus on the NEXT DAY. Combine that with small steps to make progress over time. You might start by setting a goal for the next day to replace your current breakfast with something healthier and walking for 10 minutes. Allow yourself to feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve that goal, and then repeat the next day. When you are ready, add another small step such as increasing your walking time to 20 minutes. Be consistent and patient and you’ll start seeing results before you know it.
“Success is the sum of small efforts — repeated day in and day out” — Robert Collier
FORGIVE YOURSELF when you have a SETBACK
A lot of people give up on their goals the minute they have one setback. Remember that the path to success is not a straight line. There will be setbacks and challenges. When that happens, reflect on what happened and think about how you can prevent it from happening again, and START FRESH THE NEXT DAY. Stay focused on the next small step and remember that the way to success is through a squiggly line and NOT a straight line.
“Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success” — Arianna Huffington
Following are some additional suggestions to help you achieve your goals.
Write down the reasons the goal is important to you before you start
When times get tough and you feel like giving up, read what you wrote down to remind yourself why you should keep going. If you’re really brave, record a message for your future self and watch it when times get tough to remind yourself why the goal is worth the effort.
Write down why you failed to achieve the goal in the past, and ideas to overcome those challenges
If this is not your 1st attempt at the goal, use those previous attempts as a learning opportunity. There are a lot of resources available, just do a search on the internet or talk to others who have succeeded to get proactive ideas on how to be overcome those challenges.
Schedule the small steps in your calendar
The likelihood of accomplishing anything significantly goes up when you schedule it in your calendar. Google Calendar realized that and added a way to incorporate goals into your calendar. They’ll even reschedule your goal for you if there is a conflict. You can also just print a calendar and write down your scheduled times.
Following are some FREE TOOLS that I have found helpful.
- MindMeister — Mindmeister is a Mind Map Tool that can help you break down a goal into those small steps. Start with your goal in the middle, and then break it up into pieces. Then look at each piece and break it up even further. Keep doing that until you get to the smallest step possible. The visual is a portion of my goal to declutter my home, created using MindMeister. You can even check off each small step as you complete them.
- HabitBull — HabitBull is a great app to track goals that are geared towards building positive habits or breaking negative habits. They say it’s based on Seinfield’s productivity secret: Don’t break the chain! HabitBull keeps track of how long you have kept up with your goal and motivates you to not break the streak. You can setup your goal however you want, # of days per week, # of minutes per day, maximum # per day, and more.
- Kanban Zone — Maybe you’ve heard of Agile? It’s not just for software development! Personal Kanban helps you focus on the thing you should be doing to achieve your goals and controls the amount of tasks you take on at one time (to avoid the paralyzing impact of being overwhelmed).
- Couch to 5K — If your goal is to run a 5K, I highly recommend this app. The approach is all about taking small steps to achieve your goal. You’ll start by alternating between jogging for 1 minute and walking for 1 minute 30 seconds, to running a full 5K in 9 weeks.
- Bullet Journal — For those of you that are tired of using digital, the Bullet Journal is a great alternative. It will help you not only get organized. but also help you with your goals and you have complete flexibility and creative opportunity in how to make that happen.
Keep focusing on the small steps and you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish! — Linda OBrien
