Do you have big dreams? Big goals? Big ambitions? Do they feel too far out of reach? Well, that’s why you should focus on the small things! Every big goal is composed of many smaller goals that you need to reach on the journey to your destination. For example, if you want to lose weight, then each time you decide to eat or exercise becomes a small goal. You’re not going to lose a lot of weight all at once.
No, it takes small steps to get to the big destination, and there are many small changes you can make to create big changes in your life. Here are 6 of them to get you started.
1. Reduce the friction around one good habit.
Momentum can carry you through the low times when you don’t feel like you’re making any progress. However, momentum can be hard to build if there are too many obstacles on the track. Think of it like a train. It starts off slow and methodical, eventually it builds speed, and then the momentum helps to carry it. The strength of that momentum makes it hard to stop.
Reducing the obstacles around the larger habit or goal will make it easier for you to carry on that momentum. For example, let’s go back to weight loss. If you decide to count calories, many people find it easier to take an evening to meal prep for multiple days ahead. That way, they can weigh out their food and know the calories they are going to consume in that sitting.
Then, instead of needing to do more shopping, weighing out, and prepping the food, they can just grab a container and toss it in a microwave. They already know exactly what they’re going to get, so they don’t have to think about it at all.
2. Practice responding instead of reacting once per day.
Life comes at you hard and fast. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with everything that’s going on in the world. Plus, if you have a chaotic or stressful life, you have all of the individual stresses that you have to deal with day-by-day. That can put you in a reactive mode that can leave you feeling out of control of your own life. One way that you can correct that is by practicing responding over reacting.
In my case, I had anger issues for decades due to mental illness. And, as a man, anger was the only emotion I felt like I was justified in expressing due to my social conditioning. In times when I would be slighted or feel attacked, I would immediately fire back with anger because that’s what I was inadvertently taught to do. However, that wasn’t healthy because it just reinforced unhealthy reactions.
Instead, I learned to pause before reacting, as experts suggest, so that I could respond instead. If I could feel anger or defensiveness rising, instead of jumping into anger, I would count to 10. Then I give myself a moment to think about the situation before I open my mouth. The more I did it, the easier it became. But it was many small steps to a big result in how I navigate my anger today.
The pause can be applied to any reactive pattern in your life. Whether it’s impulsive spending, responses to criticism, or hasty decisions. It’s a small step that gives you back control and helps to keep you on track for those bigger goals.
3. Leave a situation earlier than you normally would.
People who have a hard time with boundaries often spend too much time mired in negativity before choosing to honor themselves. It’s hard to immediately throw up a boundary and know how to enforce it to keep yourself safe. However, this is a skill you can develop by training your brain to be okay with choosing yourself first.
You do that by deciding to leave situations before you normally would. For example, let’s say you have a friend who talks nonstop once you get on the phone with them, never asking about you. You may feel obligated to sit there and listen to them just talk and talk and talk about nothing of interest. They’re your friend, after all. Right? Well, maybe, but I would be asking questions. What kind of friend just talks at me instead of with me?
Instead of sitting there and being their unpaid therapist, you instead say, “Hey, I don’t really have time for this right now. I need to go. I’ll talk to you later.” And if they actually are your friend, they’re not going to give you grief about it.
The same principle goes for any situation you don’t want to be in that takes up your precious time and keeps you from working toward what you really want to.
4. Stop yourself mid-sentence when you are about to self-criticize or be unnecessarily negative to others.
Many of our behaviors are reflexive, the result of years of conditioning to respond a particular way. Unmaking those reflexive behaviors is a huge goal, one that will take a long time to do. What that means from a practical standpoint is that you are going to make mistakes a lot. You’re going to react before you have a chance to think about it, or you’re going to realize how you’re reacting in the middle of it.
I remember when I was working on deconstructing my general hostility and lack of empathy toward people. I had a coworker who was between paychecks because he had just moved from across the country. He was going around to various coworkers and asking if he could just borrow a few dollars until his next payday. When he came and asked me, my reflexive reaction was to laugh and say, “hell no.”
However, almost immediately after that came out of my mouth, I realized that was the kind of behavior I was trying to prevent. So, I stopped him, apologized, and gave him a few bucks to get him through. My cruelty and defensiveness were reflexive. Eventually, that reflex diminished to the point where it’s barely a problem anymore. I still slip sometimes, but I just do what I did in that situation. I stop, I apologize, and I correct my mistake.
5. Express clearly what you’re feeling once per day.
Emotions can get twisted and warped around each other when you have a lot going on. It’s hard to figure out exactly what you may be feeling in the moment, particularly if those feelings change often. However, you can better understand yourself by taking the time to sit down, think about your emotions, and clearly express what you’re feeling and why.
Doing this just once a day will help you build the habit of untangling your emotions. Journaling is an excellent way to work it out, but you may also find that just articulating it out loud helps. Like, for example, let’s say you wake up angry for a reason you can’t determine. You can’t track it down to a specific reason, but then you recall in the background of your thoughts the stress you have at work.
You may be angry about the way you’re being treated by your boss. It’s stressful, and you carry that stress when you get up in the morning and know that you have another day ahead of you.
Understanding your emotions in this way can help to ensure you are aligned with your goals and working through any frustrations you feel regarding them.
6. Keep one small promise to yourself every day.
We often neglect ourselves in favor of work and other responsibilities. If only you had a dozen more hours in the day, you might be able to get everything done that you need to and meaningfully rest. However, we don’t have the option to acquire more time, unfortunately. We just have to use what time we have in the most effective way possible.
If you’re not used to prioritizing your own needs, one way you can go about changing that is to make one small promise to yourself every day. The promise should be something that honors and respects you and your time, even if that promise is, “I’m going to take a half-hour to just decompress for a while.”
That will help shift your mindset to one of taking care of yourself, rather than everyone else.
Closing thoughts…
As the old saying goes, every journey begins with a single step. Every step is just one small goal, choosing to put one foot in front of the other until you get to your destination. Big goals don’t have to be super complicated or difficult. Reverse engineer your destination. What’s the road that you need to take to reach the goal? Then, you pave that road with the small goals that will lead you to your final destination. It also makes the big goals and big changes much more manageable.
