One of my tendencies is to try and solve problems and struggles with an all-inclusive plan to fix everything. This often inhibits me from being as effective or as efficient as I could be because big solutions are hard to start, hard to monitor, hard to identify progress, but easy to abandon and lose focus.
Instead, I’m trying to do a better job of choosing small, sometimes even daily, steps toward a larger goal so that I’m incrementally moving in the direction that I want to go. I think the motivation of constant motion is more rewarding and adds up to greater accomplishment than the delay that’s inherent with successful long-term plans.
So perhaps you have a financial goal or a financial stress you’re wanting to overcome. Having the end-result goal is great, but I’m learning more and more how important it is to build into it very small and attainable goals that add up to the result that you want.
For example, let’s say you want to save $12,000 for XYZ. You could plan to save $500 per month for two years, but if that’s your focus how specifically are you going to find the $500? . Instead, try a plan that focuses on specific behaviors like this:
· Cut out one latte per day
· Reduce cable plan to only channels I actually watch
· Ride the bus two days per week to save on gas and parking
· Bring my own lunch twice per week
· Sell online at least one item I never use that’s just cluttering up my house
· Choose a restaurant from the coupon book or coupon websites
· Buy one fewer clothing item per month
· Skip the beer and the hot dog at the game and park just a tad farther away and walk
By my calculations, that’s close enough for most people to get to the $500/mo goal. And since the bites are small and arguably not overly sacrificial because they are spread out among different aspects of daily living, the feeling and impact of those specific behaviors probably won’t leave you feeling discouraged or totally void of enjoyment. Also, being able to see immediate results of progressing toward your goal will reinforce your enthusiasm for your choices and actions.
The point is, if you know where you want to go begin by developing a series of very small and incremental steps that will support your greater objective.
