As the new year begins and many of us set our sights on lofty goals and aims, it’s natural to wish to see immediate results and enjoy instant gratification. It’s a common belief that people achieve big goals with big, powerful actions. Perhaps that’s why so many people abandon their New Year’s resolutions each year.
The truth is, most lofty goals are achieved over time with consistency of effort. When it comes to achieving goals, you should begin with the end in mind and have a clear picture of the result you’re after, but as you put one foot in front of the other and step off on the long journey to success, it’s extremely helpful to shift your focus to incremental improvements.
No matter where you’re headed or what you’re after, commit to consistently making tiny, incremental improvements in the right direction each day. If you aim to run a 5K, for example, and you’ve never run a day in your life, going for a five-minute walk is an incremental improvement over not walking at all. The next day, perhaps you’ll go for a seven-minute walk. That would be an incremental improvement heading in the right direction. In a week, perhaps you’ll begin to jog a little bit during your walk. If you keep consistently making small improvements over your previous performance, you’ll eventually be able to run for five kilometers.
You may wish to be able to keep a clean home all of the time. If your home is currently in a state of disarray, you need to start small. This goal is really a habit change that requires a host of smaller habit changes to be established. Start with something very simple, such as cleaning your kitchen sink. Aim to consistently clean your kitchen sink until doing so becomes an automatic habit.
Soon, you can add another habit to that habit, such as wiping down your kitchen counters. Every time you clean your kitchen sink, you quickly wipe down the counters too. Incrementally, over time, you can establish habitual routines that allow you to keep your entire home clean. The key is to celebrate the small wins all along the way and every tiny bit of progress you make toward your goal.
By focusing on incremental improvements in pursuit of a goal, you not only maintain your motivation to keep going but also keep yourself from feeling overwhelmed in the face of your long-term prospects. When every little bit of progress counts, you’re basically breaking your success into small wins along the way and reducing the size of what you need to achieve at any given time.
Consistency and tiny bits of progress over a long period of time may not sound as exciting as the story of an overnight success, but most overnight successes are usually years in the making. Learn to celebrate small victories and any tiny bit of progress you can recognize, and, with time, you’ll achieve your goals.
