Start Small: A Guide on how to Accomplish Big Goals

Hi Everyone!

Today, I am going to teach you about how to start small when you want to change something in your life. A lot of the time, we get so excited about the change we want to make that we just jump all in. I am guilty of doing this as well. We need to give ourselves time to try out the new thing and then build from there. When we decide we want to be more healthy, we don’t need to go to the gym for hours, start meal prepping and drink a gallon of water per day. If you start your new goals this way, more than likely it won’t become a habit. 

So how do we start small and not let our ambition take over? We take a small portion of our goal and try it out. Let’s try this with wanting to be more healthy. You could start by eating out less for the first month but let’s make that more specific.

Let’s say you eat out 3 times a week. Try cutting that down to 2 times per week and going grocery shopping to have more options at home. After the first month, you could continue to cut it down or if you feel like eating out twice per week is fine, then you could move on to another thing like drinking more water. Most of the time when we try to do too many things at once we tend to get overwhelmed and more than likely you will end up going back to your old habits and wasting your time. 

Ideas of starting small:

1. Goal: I want to read a book a month. 

Start with reading 10-15 minutes a day.

2. Goal: Drink a gallon of water per day.

Start with having a full water bottle with you and trying to finish that. 

3. Goal: I want to eat healthier.

Trade out your unhealthy snack for a healthy one.

4. Goal: I want to be organized. 

Go through one small area of your house each week. (Ex. one cupboard or shelf)

5. Goal: I want to retire early.

Meet with a financial planner and set up a second meeting to refresh what you talked about in the first meeting two weeks later after processing. 

Sometimes goals seem scary or too big to accomplish at first. If you break them down and stick to your small start, you will be more successful. I have done it both ways and I am much more likely to stick with my habit if I start small. Whenever I make a big change too fast, I get overwhelmed and don’t stick with it. 

Simon Sinek said “Dream big, start small, but most of all start.” 

I don’t want to discourage any of you from improving yourselves. I just want to help you to be more successful with it. Please let me know what you think in the comments below. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read my blog. I am so grateful for you.