Written By Chris Josh
If you're looking to set a big goal but don't know how to tackle that idea, then you're going to want to read this blog.
The key is to figure out what tasks need to be done and set a realistic and manageable deadline. For example, when I wrote my book, "City of Serpents," I had a goal of about 180 pages. It was my first book and thought about the best way to go about it.
I asked myself, "what's the first step?" And my mind returned an answer, "write the outline first." So I thought about how I would form an outline and a thought came to mind, "write a list of items. Each item can be a theme, a memory, a specific event, place or person. And so on and so forth.
That was my first goal - to write down all the ideas that were coming to me in a list format.
Next, I started to organize the list in a logical fashion to form the outline.
After that, I started to form the chapters.
I set a very realistic and manageable goal of writing just two pages a day using Google Docs. Now at the time, I didn't know that one page in Google Docs or MS Word equates to roughly 1.7 pages in a 6x9" book. So technically, I was writing 3.4 pages a day. Still, this was manageable and I wasn't under extreme pressure to write.
The beauty of setting such a goal is that there were days where I two to five times the amount; which meant I can take a day off here and there.
Like I mentioned, the goal was to write a 180 page book but I managed to write 392 pages. I was shocked! I couldn't believe I wrote a book of that length.
That just goes to show you that you can accomplish a lot by being methodical when you first start as far as how you're going to go about your goal and just doing small amounts of work consistently. Initially, I thought it was going to take about 90 days to write 180 pages but I ended up taking a bit more time because I wrote more than expected.
So, whenever you want to set a big goal, don't get anxious. Write out a plan and think about the steps needed to achieve it and ask yourself what the first step is and then what the 2nd step is and so on. Don't worry if your initial plan isn't perfect. You can always update it as you go along.
The issue is many people set a big goal and work on it for 16 hours straight thinking they can finish it in one day. However, they find out that that's impossible and that they've burned themselves out and now have an "ick" towards that goal and put it back on the shelf - never pursuing that goal ever again.
Patience is key. You have to show up everyday and trust that over time you will put in a lot of work - enough to achieve that big goal.
I like to think of a big goal like a home renovation. When the contractors start the job, they bring in all the tools and demo the existing rooms and it just looks like a complete mess on the first day. And it stays looking messy for a while. However, the contractors keep showing up everyday and doing incremental work until one day they've completed the project. Can the general contractor finish it in one day?
Technically, he can; if he brings in a lot more workers. But in your case, you're a one man operation. You simply don't have the option to clone yourself. So be patient with the process. Don't fall into the trap of instant gratification.
I'm currently filming my gym workouts. I have to record the following workouts: abs, stretching routine, shoulders, back, chest, legs, biceps, triceps and forearms. It's a daunting task because I have to get to the gym real early before the other gym goers arrive. (It's not polite that I have a tripod set out during the morning rush). At first I was a bit frustrated because I was thinking, "how am I going to do this? It's too much!"
Then I thought for a second and I remembered! "Break it down into bits." So I started filming one workout per day. The first day I recorded my shoulder workout consisting of 4 exercises. The next time I recorded my back workout. And so on and so forth. It won't be long before I've recorded everything. By breaking it down, you are able to achieve the goal without driving yourself insane.
So, don't be afraid of setting that big goal. All you have to do is make a plan and break it down into smaller daily actions.