Choosing the Best Tiny Goal to Start
How tiny goals are best for achieving maximum success
When planning for personal success it’s always best to have a game plan.
By starting with a tiny goal, you’re setting yourself up for success. Tiny goals can stack upon each other and once one is accomplished, it makes room for other goals.
I’ve always been the type to choose more. When New Year’s rolls around, I want it all. I write at least five major goals and then a bucket list of 20ish nice to accomplish things.
By July (midyear review), I always find myself shaking my head wondering where time has gone and why I haven’t accomplished anything on my list, or very few things at most.
2020 is a year that has made me slow down. It has changed each of our lives, made us question what is truly important and shown us how quickly things can change.
A lot has changed in my personal life: from job change to getting engaged (and married by Halloween), moving locations and allowing me to pay off a little bit of debt.
Setting tiny goals starts with reflection. It starts with us asking ourselves a lot of questions:
- What is the most important area to begin with?
- What change do I really want to see in my life?
- What habit do I know I need to make or break?
- What goal would lead me closest to my biggest dream?
- Where do I want to be at the end of the month?
- Where do I want to be at the end of the year?
Next, identifying first steps is important. What is the smallest step I can make in that direction? Make a list of small steps that can be taken to reach the goal and decide which one to start with.
Maybe it’s:
- Choosing to start a publication on Medium to house your articles
- Choosing which debt you want to pay off
- Choosing to add or remove a trigger to remind you to do a certain habit
- Exercising 10 minutes
- or something else entirely.
Recently I shared two articles on building habits for change.
The Zorro principle suggests choosing one area and drawing a tiny circle before spreading out to other areas. As we become more proficient and achieve the goal, we can draw a bigger circle that can either build upon the change or introduce a completely different element.
Increments of small change: the idea to start at the very basic level of the change or habit we want to develop and then slowly adding more while working towards a large goal. The idea would be to slowly introduce change and then build upon that change by adding increments of time or experience.
Both of these approaches allow us to start small with one goal and then add tiny increments either inside or outside of the goal.
The crucial thing is to decide on one tiny goal and keep developing. Decide where to start and dig into it today.
