One of the most difficult aspects of goal-setting is maintaining a high level of achievement. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by goals that you can’t seem to finish? If you’re on a road where you find yourself flustered and anxious, learn how to break down big goals into smaller steps.
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The Key to Hitting Goals
Whether yours are medium-sized goals, such targets can make you feel stressed. The key is to slice them into doable sizes.
Be specific
You need to be specific on what exactly it is you want to achieve. Setting your mind is making clear what you can and cannot do. This is important for you to be able to focus on your efforts. A sure mindset allows you to allocate your time in a way that assures the highest chance of success.
“I want to make my business thrive in the market.”
“I want to be the best teacher in my school.”
“I want to build a muscular body. ”
With such power statements above, it tells the brain what it needs to do. Automatically it starts to center its spotlight and zoom in according to your perception. Knowing the weight of being specific beats the “lack of info” issue and opens your door bigger for your plans.
Believe in it
How many times have you planned for a goal and as usual – fail?
“I can’t get up early for an exercise, I always sleep late.”
“I’m not good enough…like the smart ones.”
“My article is low par, will readers like it?”
Which scenario do you think is more likely a typical you?
Logically, you can always arrange an earlier bedtime if you truly want to get up early. Tagging yourself as not good enough is looking at yourself like one. Unless you stop it – there’s no way out. Desiring to be a blogger requires full conviction. Enjoy writing what you love and let the audience discover your ideas, rather than doubting your work.
Giving credence to yourself maximizes your brain’s desire to fight for that goal. It is in recognizing your own self-worth that empowers both your mind and heart to run for your goal no matter what. As long as there is nothing that’s stopping you like health or finances – you’re on your way towards hitting that mark.
Create a system
Let me start with examples:
Imagine yourself embarking on a plane. Carrying 3 suitcases at the same time seems out of one’s mind. The reason why is because you can carry them one bag at a time and save yourself from falling. Another is: reducing your carbo intake every meal helps you lose weight without hunger than skipping an entire meal.
The essence is to chunk your goals in amounts that you can comfortably tackle one by one. If you do things systematically, you do it in a methodical way. Amaze yourself how you can finish them more deliberately, conveniently, and with less sacrifice.
Now let’s proceed with how you can become a systematic goal setter.
How to Break Down Big Goals into Smaller Steps
(The 3 Methods) Method 1: Manage your goals by the time
This method helps you manage and follow time concurrently. My friend pursued a 90-day weight loss journey last year. The goal was to get from 75 kgs to 60 kgs- in 90 days. So, her program was to walk for a minimum of 30 mins and another half hour of workout every day. She must have followed it religiously as I saw obvious results. She managed time perfectly!
Procrastination is an enemy of goal-setting. This practice has been seen as a malady that pulls you against aiming your peak. Less procrastination is less postponing. It helps you meet deadlines with the right stride.
Let’s say you brought a special task home to finish during the night so the project is ready for the next day. Now how will you be able to finish the homework if you keep swinging between the task, your favorite TV program, and chatting on Facebook? The next thing you realize is you need to wake up 2 hours earlier to go back and finish it.
Putting a focus on what needs to be done will provide you with practical strategies to never stray away from the work you need to do. You’ll be more inclined to create a system that helps complete first things first and put the ones that contribute to achieving targets within reach. Including precise amounts, dates, or specific times per day is helpful.
If you are a perfectionist or a procrastinator, the Pomodoro technique can help improve your focus one Pomodoro at a time. This technique uses a timer so it’s ideal for students, too.
Curious? Find the technique here.
Method 2: Manage your goals by quantity
Something as simple as taking care of your hardest task first before touching something of lesser priority can go a long way. Why? Because you are able to measure the amount of time and energy required for a particular mission.
For example, determining the amount of time to complete a science presentation video helps you figure out how much time to give on topics that don’t require demonstration. If science needs more time for lab and illustrations, you can finish language or spelling lists ahead in a much lesser time. That helps you measure how long you can finish an entire month’s lesson plan.
Supposing you want to read a 1,300-page book. Wow, that’s intimidating at a glance! But anyhow, it can be done without pressure if you chunk the reading project into doable pieces. Dissecting the book into chapters and reading one chapter a day lets you finish reading in a year. It’s all about quantity- breaking a big goal into quantities is the way to go.
One great tool to help you understand how to prioritize tasks is the quadrant time-management system, also known as a Time Management Matrix. This handy graph splits your activities into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. Try it!
Method 3: Manage your goals by actionable steps
Only embrace the steps that you have the ability to put into action. If you think it’s something beyond your capacity – move on. This way, goals are established without feeling overwhelmed. Let’s call these “actionable goals.”
For example, you aim to trim belly fats so you want to cut on carbo. Instead of saying “I will skip breakfast for a week,” it would be healthier to prefer not snacking after 9 pm for a week, instead. The point is, breakfast fuels your body and sustains it for a day’s work. Therefore, skipping snacks before bedtime is more practical than depriving your body of the essential food it needs.
Another example: Granting that you and your friends are planning to travel for summer. But you haven’t planned for it financially. Insisting on your wants by borrowing funds outside your range leaves you a pending headache at the end of the rope. Attaining a dream vacation is a lot lighter to achieve with good planning ahead of it.
The main goal, the sub-goal, and actionable steps should go hand in hand. This defines what it takes to be closer to your main goal at your own time and pace. In that timeframe, planning builds you your sub-goals and the actionable steps are the results of your preparation towards achieving the major ones.
Achieve More by Setting Smart Goals
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In Essence
Putting your mind and heart into a goal helps you believe you can achieve it. The great thing is you are hitting the ultimate outcome you would like to achieve in a short-term plan. By organizing time and resources, you make the most of your time. Once goals are set, you will celebrate the journey as you look back and appreciate how made it to the top.
One piece of advice: Be on guard as managing the 3 methods above can be tricky. You might not detect some traps that can end you fell into them. The treacherous word is “procrastination.” A wise goal-setter sets the right pace towards reaching goals one step at a time.
The secret word to reaching a goal is to “stop postponing a task.
Embracing the 3 methods will give you more available time with other things that truly matter to you, instead of worrying about last-minute tasks.
Which among the steps above have you been doing? Congrats then. Do you have other things to add to the methods? Share them with us in the comments.
