“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh
Have you ever rock climbed? I can remember many summer days when I was going to college in California on heated rock faces in the foothills of the Sierra mountains.
While I was never a master climber, I enjoyed a good scale here and there.
What I learned climbing has helped me tremendously when I’ve tried to make big changes in my life. See, rarely does a climber know every single movement they are going to make from when they leave the ground to when they are on the peak.
Long climbs are broken into smaller segments going from one outcropping to the next. These little rock shelves on the face of a cliff allow the climber to take a much needed break, catch their breath, clear their mind, and recalculate the best route to the next outcropping.
Little by little, small scales will add up to create long climbs.
Life isn’t much different in reality. Small steps strung together are always what gets us far distances.
We can often get stuck in overwhelm when we think about big changes in our lifestyle: eating better, exercising more, feeling balanced, getting proper rest, or reconnecting to our personal interests and passions. These kinds of goals feel miles away when we are still managing the every day demands and intensity of mothering.
Most of us can’t muster the energy to even consider starting the climb. When you are a mom, major life overhaul is just not realistic…at least when you think of it in major terms.
What we often don’t see are the ledges, the outcroppings, all along the way, scattered between our right now and our ultimate goal.
The capacity to take a big goal and break it down into smaller parts is part of every successful person’s story, in any area of life. But there is a critical detail involved most people miss: you can only truly set one mini-goal at a time. Trying to sketch out all your outcroppings along the way right from the start is equally overwhelming and defeating.
At any given time in life, you should be clear on three things:
(1) where you are right now,
(2) where your mountain top is, and
(3) the first outcropping you are actively heading toward.
That is ALL you need to know to get started.
Once you accomplish your first mini-goal, you pause and celebrate. You take a breath and take stock. Because you will be a slightly different person, your surroundings will be different, your vantage point will be different.
Once you get to the first ledge, then you look up again and find your next ledge. You can not see the second ledge from the ground (even if you think you can), you can only truly see outcropping #2 from the vantage point of outcropping #1.
“How big things get done” is really the “art of the mini-goal”…one mini-goal at a time.
This is exactly the process I followed when I created my course Designed for Wellness. I knew that moms who want stronger, leaner and lighter bodies, calmer minds, balanced moods and more sustained energy throughout their day felt utterly overwhelmed at what they would need to do to make those changes a reality in their lives.
So over the course of 12 weeks I led women, one outcropping at a time, up a mountain that most never imagined they could scale. I led my first class 3 years ago and after hundreds of mothers have journeyed with me, I know this process works.
Today, I’d love to invite you to take a “Little Tastes” tour of Designed for Wellness with me over the next couple weeks.
I’m leading the only live group-run of the program this year beginning March 9, so to showcase some of the ways we learn and grow through the course, I mined out a few “little tastes” of the curriculum and am offering them for free every couple of days from now until March 9.
If you’d like to sign up for the no-cost but full-of-goodness “Little Tastes” Tour of Designed for Wellness, hop over here and sign up today!
And I’d love to hear from you in the comments. What major mountains have you scaled in this “mini-goal” way? Have you found this strategy works in your life?
