Stop sweating the big stuff: take small steps consistently to help you reach your goals and feel fab naturally.  We regularly hear that it’s important to have clear goals. Whether it’s in your business or job, your personal life, your finances, even love these days when you decide to search for that special someone. Set a goal, know what you want to achieve and then go make it happen!  Today, Nicola Mercer of Life Now Coaching shares her tips on how to take that first step.

“Our culture has conditioned us to think success comes from dreaming up these huge, important goals that we need to go after to have success, and then we’ll be happy. Because we all know that success equals happiness, doesn’t it? This leads to us fixating on having huge goals in place and feeling sub-standard when we struggle to hit them.

We believe we’re only worthy and successful if we’re achieving these goals.

THE REALITY OF BIG GOALS

The reality is that the goals we create are so big they have the opposite effect. Instead of giving us the drive and motivation to make them happen, we end up paralysed. We’re unable to move as it all seems so far from reach, a huge mountain standing in our way, impossible to climb. So, we choose to stay exactly where we are, where we’re comfortable and can stop sweating about hitting these crazy goals!

I see this so often, especially when the goal is about making a change in your health and wellbeing. It could be that someone wants to lose weight, or maybe get fitter, or want to feel less stressed, or build healthier habits. They know what results they want and start out by setting a fantastic goal to get these results. The goal is going to change their life, finally make them feel how they’ve always dreamt of feeling. They have the recipe and now it’s time to work through it, lose two stone, run a 10km, leave work behind at the end of each day, cut back on sugar and stop the bloating.

Success and happiness is in sight!

Except the recipe is one for disaster. They give up before they even begin. They’re crippled by overwhelm, probably procrastinating and telling themselves it’s fine, they’re already doing well because they at least have the goal, that’s what matters most. But the intention alone doesn’t bring the results they want, and when they fail to get off the starting block, they realise nothing is changing or changing at the pace they’d like it to change, and so they convince themselves it’s too hard, it’s too far from reach, and give up.

TAKE SMALL STEPS CONSISTENTLY TO REACH YOUR GOALS

I love goals. They’re pretty close to the top of the process I use to achieve what I want. The difference, I believe, is that once you have the goal, you don’t immediately throw yourself into trying to smash it. Instead, you start working backwards to determine what you need to do first to take one very small step to achieve something that will help you get closer to making your goal your reality.

When you have a clear goal, even if it’s something you want to achieve quickly, planning out mini goals and actions using small, specific steps is key to getting the results you want. You focus on achieving small results rather than trying to do things that are all about immediately hitting the big goal.

GOALS AS A JIGSAW PUZZLE

This is why I talk about not sweating the big stuff, but instead getting crystal clear on how to get started with something right away. Approaching your goals like you would a jigsaw puzzle, picking out small pieces to begin building a framework means you see immediate progress and success. You can celebrate every one of these wins. You feel there’s momentum and want to keep moving forward to achieve even more. It begins to feel manageable and achievable, which is a key to delivering the results you’re aiming for.

Here’s how to apply this process of taking small steps consistently to achieve a goal.  Let’s take a health goal of having a more balanced diet with fewer ready meals:

• Have a clear goal and know why you want to achieve it.
• Step back from the goal.  Take a helicopter view to look at one little thing you could do today to move you one step closer to achieving it.
• Make it something that requires very little time or effort, something you know you can do with ease.
• Commit to doing it that day or the next, no later!
• Note down one meal you’d like to make this week that has a good mix of fish, veg and carbs in it.
• You do this task and you like the sound of the meal.  Write a shopping list for the ingredients and buy them the next day.
• Cook this meal and really enjoy it.
• Feel good that you’ve done what you said you would and actually made a lovely meal!
• Be assured that this can work out for you, that you’re capable of having a more balanced diet.
• Set another little step to take.
• Decide to look through a recipe book to get inspired about healthy cooking.
• And you’re off the starting block and making progress already!

ONE STEP AT A TIME

Nobody can get to the top of a ladder without climbing the rungs one at a time. Going all in to do everything you can to achieve your goal as quickly as possible is tempting.  But it’s like trying to jump directly to the top of a ladder. It seems to make sense, it’ll save time and get you where you want to be quickly.  But it’s impossible to make it successfully happen this way.
 Take small steps consistently to reach your goal and you’ll get there a lot faster!

YES YOU CAN!

Think about the goals you keep meaning to get going with. Are you failing to make progress because you’re focusing on it all at once?  This stops you from seeing how to get started. Are you able to take this approach instead, to take one very small, specific step this week?

Give it a go and feel the energy you create when you’ve achieved that first step. Celebrate your achievements and wins after every one of these little goals has been accomplished.  You’ll know you’ve moved forward and finally feel confident you can hit that bigger goal. Time to take that first step and get the results you want!”

Thank you Nicola, love your simple, effective and proven process – it’s right up my street!

ACTIVATE YOUR WELLBEING

I’m all about helping midlife women feel fab through the simple step of activation so that they can make choices based on their dreams, not on what energy they have left depending on their burn out level or how tired they feel…

Interested in learning how you can do one breathtakingly simple thing every day?  Check out our unique, clinically proven antioxidant activator (click on the flag in the top left hand corner to change to your country) and start supporting your wellbeing:  you’ll thank yourself just like the tens of thousands of others who took a look already do.

Biohacking is a simple, effective and proven way to feel fab.  Why not take take the small step of adding activation to your self-care routine?

For more simple biohacking tips, check out this blog post.