When big goals get in the way: smaller goals to the rescue
You probably know that goal setting is a really powerful tool, right? But have you ever set a goal and then gotten scared away? I have.
Take this blog as an example. Earlier this year I set myself the goal of writing and sharing more blog posts with our readers. At first, I had great success. This motivated me to write bigger and better posts with more research and depth. I was having fun. I felt excited and encouraged!
But then the problems began. I began to experience “goal creep.” I started out with the simple goal of writing more regular posts, and now I was spending 4 to 8 hours on each one. So, after that initial flurry of posts, I found myself writing nothing because I “didn’t have that much time” to spare.
I was letting my goal get in the way of my achievement. The scale of the goal was scaring me away, so I wasn’t writing anything!
Last week I embarrassingly admitted to my accountability partner that I had once again failed to write a blog post. She gave me a challenge: write a post in just one hour. So here I am writing again and enjoying it. Brilliant!
Thinking about it now, I really should have know better. I had a similar experience earlier this year when I was training for an 80km mountain bike race. I didn’t have the 2 or more hours each day to train, so I bailed on training altogether.
Eventually, I discovered I could trick myself by adjusting my goal. I switched my focus to just starting my workout. I figured even just 30 minutes — heck, even 15 minutes — was better than nothing. The interesting thing was once I got started I usually did the full workout that I thought I “didn’t have time for.”
All I had to do was get past the initial fear caused by the scale of my goal.