Bigger Goals & Smaller Actions
At first glance, both the “bigger goals” and the “smaller actions” seem contradictory to each other. One might think that in order to achieve something big in life, you will have to do an equally big task for it as well. However, that is not correct because that is not possible for you at all. Before I get into the detail of what I mean, let’s first discuss what exactly do big goals and small actions mean in life.
When you are starting to turn your life around or even when you have just decided to improve the quality of your life, you should aim for a goal that is quite ambitious for you. This should be a goal that excites you to work for it as this is the basis of all motivation. There is no external quote or self-help book that will give you that long lasting motivation because only you are aware of your own situation and so, it makes sense that only you can plan to change it in whichever direction you want. Decide on a goal where you want to take your future self to and you will know the answer as to why you should take action to change your life.
When you have decide on a big goal that you want to achieve for yourself, now comes the question that “How can you go about doing it?”. The answer is simple and it lies in taking action for it. However, remember how I said that achieving something big by doing an equally big feat is not possible? Well, that is because if you have indeed decided to choose a bigger goal that incites you to action, there will be no such amazing feats of such large magnitude accessible to you who is just at the starting line. So, most people would either give up on their goals or try to wait for such a big opportunity to present itself to them. You cannot go for either of these routes because any opportunity will only present itself to you if you are willing to keep moving forward. This leads to my point that you should opt for doing smaller actions which may not be directly beneficial towards reaching your goal. But, these actions will improve your life, if only by a little margin.
Importance of having Big Goals and Small Actions
When you put both of these together, you get a basic plan to follow when you have just decided to make your life better and fell like you are indeed at the starting line. The need for having bigger goals is apparent to everyone because not only does it gives you the motivation to put in the hard work, it also helps to shape a better version of yourself for the future. That is because, imagine if you decided to run 20 miles a day as your end goal for the year, where you could only run 1 miles today. Even if this goal proves to be too challenging for your initially estimated time period and you only reach to about running 12 miles a day, you will still end up with something greater than what you started with and for some people, this might have just been their goal to begin with. In contrast, if you goal was smaller(lets say only 5 miles a day), you will most likely have ended up achieving only that much in the same amount of time. And that’s because your initial motivation would be gone as your goal would be met. By then, you would have to start the process all over again and so you would not reach your full potential for that year(or whatever time period your goal had). As long as you know that you have actually improved from your initial position and reached some extent of your goal, you can readjust the goal and fix your previous mistakes to improve upon it further.
While this may seem easy at first, lets also discuss the inner workings of how you go about trying achieve you goal after you have set it. The answer lies in consistency. If you have a big goal, then performing an equally bigger goal would not only be impossible for you, it should also be somewhat frightening and awe-inspiring to you. So, you should divide the action or if you cannot think of such a big feat at all, you should just try to think of the smallest possible actionable task that might bring you towards the right track and then work your way from there. If you have chosen a truly actionable task then you should be able to do it consistently and even though it will be only a fraction of what your goal requires, it will consistently add up and bring you unexpected results.
conclusion
For everything to work smoothly, you should first understand that having bigger goals is always a good thing but remember to always try to incorporate a time period for achieving those goals. This restriction will also serve as an additional source of motivation for you. However, this also means that you will often not be able to achieve those big goals because the time period you specify at the beginning will only be based on limited information you had at that time. No matter what, it is important to not get discouraged by this and know that you have indeed made progress compared to where you started from, and many people have not even achieved that. If you think your current goal is too big, then you should make sub-goals and set them as your milestones. You can even divide your actions for each milestones and work on them one at a time(divide & conquer). But, your main goal should always be the one driving you towards it.
Every small action should be incorporated as part of your life and then you should work to build upon it further and further. Many small actions will grow up to be an amazing feat but you have to stay consistent about it. If you decide to opt for bigger actions to reach your goal early, it will also require more effort from you and may also lead to mental exhaustion as you will be forcing yourself to do something which you deem to be quite difficult for the current you. Try to take things slowly and believe in the power of consistency.
