ACCOMPLISHING GOALS WITH SMALL STEPS
You can hear the audio version of this discussion on my podcast at Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast, on Apple Podcast, and many other platforms!
WHY SMALL STEPS?
This week’s blog post and podcast episode mark my one-year anniversary of starting the podcast. So, I wanted to pick a topic that was fitting for my anniversary episode. When I started the podcast, I was very unsure if anyone would listen at all. I committed to making 100 episodes no matter if anyone listened or not. And then once I had 100 episodes done, I would decide if I was going to continue or say Ok well that didn’t work out! Thankfully some people did listen, and I continued on!
When I initially set the 100 episode goal it didn’t sound like that many episodes. But, then as I did my first few episodes, I thought about this goal that I had set and thought how the heck am I going to get all the way up to 100 episodes? How will I ever think of enough things to talk about to create 100 episodes?
So, I decided that I could not approach this with a focus on doing 100 episodes. That was still my goal, but instead of focusing on that end goal, I decided to take it one episode at a time. I would get one episode done and then think about the next one. I wanted to be consistent, so I had deadlines to make sure each episode was completed on time, but I did not focus on coming up with 100 ideas, I focused on what I needed to do to get the next episode complete. So, that is what gave me the idea for this anniversary episodes topic of accomplishing goals with small steps.
WHERE TO START
Don’t wait until you have the perfect plan in place to get from start to finish. This can often lead to procrastination causing you to take no action. Figure out what first little step you can take and do that. You just have to keep taking small steps to keep making progress on your goal. Try not to let the amount of time to reach the end goal discourage you. Focus on the first small goal that you can likely achieve in a reasonable amount of time. Once that goal is done, determine what your next small goal is.
Do you ever think about how much time has passed since something happened in your life? Wow, I can’t believe that was 5 years ago? What if you had started some of your long-term goals back then and kept tackling little pieces of them? You would probably have them done by now. Time goes by quicker than you think.
WAYS TO BREAK DOWN YOUR GOALS
It is important to break down your goals by actionable steps. When you break a goal down into steps you can focus on one at a time which will feel much less overwhelming and will help you keep moving forward. Break down the steps as detailed as you can to make them more manageable.
If you are working on a goal that has a time frame in which to complete it, it can be helpful to estimate how long the entire project will take. Then determine how much time you need to work on it each day or week to be completed by the deadline. If you can break a 4-hour project down into 15 – 30 minute pieces, it begins to feel more manageable.
If you have a goal that is more task-oriented that includes a specific amount of steps or tasks that need to be done, a really good option is to break it down by quantity. An example of this could be, say you have years of pictures to sort through that you would like to get organized into some type of albums or other storage. You might say, I have 20 envelopes of photos. I would like to have this project complete within one year. So, I will need to go through 1 envelope every other week, or ½ of an envelope every week.
BREAKING DOWN SHORTER TERM GOALS
If you want to read more – read a paragraph or two when you have a couple of minutes, just because you can’t sit down to read for an hour doesn’t mean you can do a little here and there. Do you want to start doing pushups? Commit to doing 1 each day, you will naturally do more than one once you are on the floor anyway.
If you want to start saving up for something, you can start putting a small amount of money aside for it whenever you can. Little amounts of savings over time can add up to quite a lot. Sometimes even just the momentum of taking those small steps will encourage you to put more effort into your savings.
MOST IMPORTANTLY – TAKE THE SMALL STEPS
Setting the goals is the easy part! As much as you come up with a really well laid out achievable goal with small steps broken out to help you achieve it if you don’t start actually taking the steps, it’s not going to get you anywhere on your goal. Don’t wait to be motivated to get started, schedule an actual time to work on your goal if you need to hold yourself accountable. If needed, put it on your calendar in a time slot just like you would any other appointment.
If you still can’t get yourself moving, consider if this goal is something that is really important to you. Sometimes we can’t get moving on a goal because even though we think it’s important to us, it’s really not if we have no desire to put the effort into it. Maybe pick something else to focus on that is really important to you!
Thanks so much for checking in! If you would like to hear the podcast version of this topic to check out Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast! Also, be sure to check out my other blog posts on this site!
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