How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

Today’s post is about chunking your goals down, which is vital to your success in achieving them. This part is about the specific action steps you will take to achieve each of your goals.  Chunking goals down is simply taking a large goal and breaking it down into smaller, more manageable components.  This alleviates any feelings of overwhelm and you get the satisfaction of ticking items off your list.  Think of the question, "how do you eat an elephant".  One bite at a time. Now, one of the reasons you have to be aware of your "big why" is oftentimes when working towards your goals bit by bit, you risk losing interest and giving up on the goals.  When your why is big enough, you will press forward.  You have to be in action and, better still, you must maintain focused action based upon your highest ideals and goals.

One of the reasons I resonated with Jack Canfield’s affirmation guidelines is that it causes us to get specific about what we want to create. A sure place where people miss the mark in the goal achieving process is that when they set goals and create affirmations, they are not specific enough. This is based upon our fears and limiting beliefs, usually in one of these two forms:

1. The fear of stating something too big and, therefore, unrealistic so you feel as though you are lying to yourself; or

2. The fear of not asking big enough. “What if I only ask for $100,000 and I could have had $1,000,000 had only asked?”

Where does this leave most of us? Believing that if we focus on the general idea of what we want, then we will get it. But the truth of the matter is vague wishes lead to vague results.

So let’s get specific! Create a plan of action for each of your goals. Brainstorm as many action items as possible. Through this process you will create your action plan and road-map to achieving your goal in real time. Some questions to ask yourself:

• What will I need to do?

• How much money will I need to save or raise?

• What new skills will I need to learn to accomplish the goal?

• What resources will I need to mobilize and put my idea into effect?

• Who will I need to recruit in my vision to make it happen?

• What can I outsource?

• Who can I ask for support?

If you are a visual learner, you may prefer the process of mind mapping as an effective tool for creating your action plan.  Following is an example:

Again, I believe that one of the main reasons so many people fail to achieve their goals is that they miss this very vital step of chunking it down step-by-step so that every day they have clear and concise action steps moving them towards their goals and dreams.

The next step for success is to schedule and create the time to incorporate these activities into your already full life in tomorrow’s post.