Do you find yourself setting the same goals year after year?

Perhaps you’ve been trying to lose 50lbs for the best part of a decade now, or you’ve spent years struggling with debt. You might have a big dream (perhaps writing a novel, getting a new qualification, or starting your own business) … but it never feels like the time is right.

It’s tempting to wait for a huge stretch of uninterrupted time so that you can work on your big goals. But be honest – how often in the last few years have you ever had that sort of time available?

For the vast majority of us, there’s simply no easy way to clear our schedules. Maybe you work full-time, or you have young children, or you’re caring for elderly relatives – whatever your exact circumstances, your life is busy, and things aren’t going to miraculously change overnight.

The good news is that you don’t need to wait for the perfect moment to start on your goals.

In fact, you’ll achieve far more with a “little and often” approach than by waiting in vain for an opportunity to take massive action.

Let’s run some numbers.

Example #1: Write a Novel in a Year

Say your goal is to write a novel, and you can find a spare 20 minutes, once a day (perhaps during your lunch break).

If you stay focused for 20 minutes, you can probably write 200 words – that’s about half a typed page.

It doesn’t sound like much. In fact, when you think about the length of a whole novel (70,000+ words), it might not seem worth doing at all.

But just look at how those 200 words add up:

• After a week, you’ll have 1,400 words – a (shortish) chapter.
• After a month, you’ll have 6,000 words.
• After a year, you’ll have 73,000 words – a whole novel.

That’s a wonderful achievement – and with just a tiny investment of time on a daily basis.

Example #2: Learn to Cook in a Year

Perhaps you’re a terrible cook – you even burn beans on toast. You’ve been meaning to learn to cook for years, but the idea is just too daunting.

You’d like to take a class, but you can’t find the time to commit to it.

Let’s say that you commit to cooking a meal just twice a week, on Monday and Wednesday nights, and you choose recipes that will take at most an hour to prepare. You’re investing just a couple of hours each week – but after a year, you’ll have spent over a hundred hours cooking.

Don’t you think that, after a hundred hours’ practice, you’ll be a decent cook?

Almost any goal can be tackled in this way, whether it’s decluttering your house or launching a new business.

Even smallish goals can become much easier to achieve when you break them into tiny but regular steps.

Of course, there will be times in your life when it is possible to work hard and fast on a goal – and sometimes that might be necessary when a problem (e.g. debt) has become a crisis.

Most of the time, though, it’s much better to focus on taking small, daily or weekly, steps toward your chosen goal. You really will make faster progress that way.

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