One Step At a Time

If you're an avid reader of my blog, or my ezine, you know I often stress the importance of setting SMART goals, writing them down, and making a plan to follow them.

I understand that it's challenging to keep up with a goal, and sometimes they seem almost unreachable. It's easy to become bored, complacent, or just distracted with other things.

Which is why it is SO important that you take your goals one step at a time. If you were going to climb a mountain, would you just start out with the goal of reaching the top and climb and climb until you got there or collapsed from exhaustion, or would you plan out your path, step-by-step, to keep you on track, and give you places to stop and rest and enjoy the view a little? I'm going to bet it's the latter of those two that you would do. Goal setting is no different.

Have you ever looked at a learn-to-run program? Have you ever seen one that told you to get up off the couch tomorrow and immediately run 5k, even though you've never ran before? What is more likely, is that you will find they break you into the habit of running very gradually.

First you run for 2 minutes and walk for one. Then 5 minutes and walk for one. The pattern continues week after week until you can achieve your goal of running 5k. Why do they do this, instead of saying "go out and run as far as you can every day, and the next day run further than the day before"?

They are simply using the step-by-step method of getting to your goal. By having set parameters every week, you know exactly how well you are doing, what you need to do the next week to move forward, and what you should be patting yourself on the back about accomplishing this week. As you jump up another minute or two each week you can easily tell those who are supporting you on your journey how much further you have come.

If you are struggling with your goals, and getting bored of working on them, take some time and make sure you are breaking them down in the right way. Each step that you outline should be specific, timely and measurable. And when you reach each step along the way, make sure you take a few moments to enjoy it, before you start out on the journey to the next step.