How to start small to finish big
When we dream big, it’s easy to get caught up in the dream and become overwhelmed. Huge goals often feel like mountains that we’re not equipped to climb. I believe this is one of the main reasons why so many big dreamers never act on their goals. The vision is so big that they fail to see how they could ever make it their reality, so they do nothing.
In order to achieve big dreams it’s important to start small: plan small, take small steps, move forward in an achievable way. That way the path that leads to your dreams feels more manageable, and you’ll be more likely to remain motivated and in action.
How do you start small?
Put action steps on your to-do list, not goals
Last week a client told me about the “goals” she’d been stuck with on her to-do list. When I asked her how long they’d been on there, her reply was: “Forever”. I wasn’t surprised. I see this so often in my coaching practice. When we fail to turn goals into actions steps when putting them on our to-do lists, not much gets done. Who can blame us? Goals could take weeks, months, years to accomplish. Having them as an action step on our daily planner inevitably will cause overwhelm.
Keep your goals and dreams on your vision board and use your daily planners for the actual steps you’ll take to achieve them.
One way to do this is to break down each of your goals into all the steps it’ll take you to accomplish them. Then use this master list to put together your daily, weekly, or monthly to-do lists, starting from the actions you can take right now. If your goal is to start an online business for instance, steps you’ll need to take range from figuring out your website software, domain name, hosting provider all the way to writing content, defining your offering, and putting together your marketing strategy. Not all of these steps can be taken immediately. But some can, like researching website options, or brainstorming domain names. Those are the steps you need to get started with first.
Make sure you can complete each step in one sitting
It’s not enough to turn goals into action steps. You have to make sure you can tackle each of them in one sitting. What I mean by that is that you have to be able to complete any action step in 30 minutes to a few hours, depending on the time you’ve allocated for it on your daily schedule. If not, the action step is not small enough and probably looks more like an intermediate goal that needs refining.
When I put together action steps I like to revisit them a few times to make sure they’re the smallest they can be. When I review them I always ask myself the same question: “Is there anything else I need to do to complete this step?”. If the answer is no, I know I have a good action step. If it’s yes, I break it down further.
Plan ahead weekly
Once you have a master list of action steps for each of your goals it’s time to plan. I love to plan ahead of my week on Sunday. It’s the most peaceful day of the week, with the least amount of distractions. At least for me I sit down with my list and fill my weekly planner with the steps I’ll take that week. It not only helps me to stay focused, but I consistently achieve more when I plan ahead like this.
One thing that has helped me throughout the years though (and that I’m still working on) is to limit the amount of things I put on my list every day. It’s so easy to overestimate the amount of time we have available, and to stress ourselves out with too many things we think we “have to” do. When we do, it’s as if we’re adding the goals back on our to-do list: we become overwhelmed, and our momentum fades away. Make sure to give yourself enough time each day to complete the actions steps you’ve set yourself, and limit how many you’ll do each day.
Remember there’s a whole world out there. While you’re building your big dreams make sure to experience, and enjoy it. In the end, now is the only time we’ve got.
If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.
