The Power of the First Step: Turning Goals Into Reality
Fridge Philosophy: Taking the first step is often the hardest but most crucial part of achieving your goals. Start small, build momentum, and watch your progress grow with every action you take.
Note: Since 2018, I have placed these short quotes on our refrigerator at home to provide subtle hints for successful, thoughtful, and purposeful practices in hopes my teens would internalize them. Along the way, I found them helpful in my own life.
How is that New Year’s resolution going? Gone to the gym yet? Started your All-American novel? Gleaned out your garage?
Not yet?
The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they go against every bit of goal-setting advice, or at least the advice that will help you achieve your goals. Each year, I stress to anyone listening that resolutions are made to be broken. Goals are meant to be achieved.
Resolutions are often too broad. They focus on the broad. Lose weight. Write a book. Clean the garage. Instead, the advice says to be clear and focused and concentrate on achieving smaller chunks on the way to the larger goal. As the joke goes:
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
One of the books that has been a game-changer for me has been The 12-week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington (I just found a version for writers!). Their suggestion is to break down yearly goals into 12-week increments. Create goals for that first quarter. Break down those larger goals into weekly steps to achieve that overall goal. Set measurements and milestones, measure your weekly achievements against those goals, and commit.
It’s transformed my productivity from decent to “How do you get all of this done?” Part of it is the gamification. By setting weekly goals and measuring myself in the moment to the goals, I understand how my productivity compares to what I’ve committed at the beginning of the week. Sometimes, when I’m not feeling it, there’s no greater kick in the pants to keep going than when I’ve committed to writing 10 pages for the week, and it’s Friday, and I’ve written one. When I commit to three visits to the gym a week (to achieve 150 trips for the year), I plan what days I’ll be working out based on my schedule that week.
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf is another influential book. Told as a parable of an amateur archer who travels to Japan to learn from a sensei, this book emphasizes the importance of the process. Goals are important. They point the way. But fall in love with the journey, and you will be successful. I’ve heard this from other speakers. If you’re a writer, don’t let the finished book be your validation. The joy comes from creating something from nothing, finding the nuances of a character arc, and creating a story that resonates. We control the process. Let that be our guide.
I included the Winter Warlock from the Christmas Classic “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” to illustrate how easy it is to start. We only need to put one foot in front of the other to start achieving our goals for the year. Then, all we need to do is keep stepping, and soon, we’ll be walking out the door.
I’m rooting for you to achieve your 2025 goals.
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Side of Mustard
Guest on the Mighty Books Podcast
With the release of Lose Yourself, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking on several podcasts. The latest interview is from the Mighty Books with Ryan M. Oliver. We had a great conversation. Please take a listen. To know more about Ryan, tune in next week as he is my guest on the CHOW!