We believe that we must be realistic and in turn that leads to setting small goals. Small goals look very good on paper… easier to achieve, more realistic, start small, you can see your progression better… but in reality they are not that great.
I know it is very counter intuitive. While you should be grounded in reality when setting a goal ( if you have never boxed in your life, you can not expect to beat Mike Tyson in a couple of years) thinking small can actually be more dangerous than we end to think.
Here is why:
You need to be inspired! You need an end result that will fuel you with motivation in high doses, that will make you get out of bed exited, that will make you tenacious when failure and resistance come.
You need to see the awesome changes the results will bring to your life. And you can only do that by setting big goals.
Not unachievable, but big! If you set a small goal has your priority what will likely happen is that you will get lazy, “ oh, just this one time ill stop, it’s ok” To set a small goal is to pave the road to procrastination. ( you can quote me on that one ;) )
For example: Let’s say you are stating to practise a martial art. You are a white belt , if your goal is to become a black belt, you will go to every single practise, you will listen to everything, you will try to learn at each move, you will keep going up the belts with the black in mind.
Even if it takes you 10 years (average) you will be focus and at least become close to the black belt. What happens if you’re goal is to get a blue one ( after white) ? You will start skipping training here and there, you’ll say “ it’s ok, I have time… it’s easy… I got this…” and in the end you probably won’t ever leave the white belt.
Small goals are good if you look at them as small victories.
Micro goals let’s call them. If for example you use them for three things in the morning “ I will do 20 push ups first thing out of bed, read 10 pages of a book and cook a health breakfast… I will do that for a week straight”
This type of micro goals can be good in order to create momentum and get you going with excitement and confidence. But in the big picture perspective you are better of setting big goals.
“ The higher the goal, the more energy you will call up from deep within.”
Robert Greene
As always, thank you for reading.
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