Let me ask you an important question: what's the biggest pressing goal on your mind right now?
How are you doing in reaching those goals?
Do you ever feel stuck? Do you ever struggle to meet those goals?
I know I have.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I've been working on a Doctoral program for 8 years, now. There's a variety of reasons why it's taken so long, but I recently felt really stuck. (By the way, I'm on the dissertation stage and aim to be done by this coming June). 😄
A few weeks ago I submitted the first two chapters of my dissertation. It was a tremendous feeling to send those in. But now I needed to start my third chapter, the theological chapter. After reading thousands and thousands of pages of material these last few years, what did I really want to say? I felt intimidated by the whole thing.
It felt like this huge mountain.
As a result, I didn't write anything for 3 weeks. That's bad, because I have a hard deadline this September 1. If I don't finish by that date, I completely fail this Doctoral program.
So what did I do? And what should you do if you ever feel stuck, like you're not progressing?
I recently read this article in the New York Times on the principle of Micro Progress that greatly helped.
What's Micro Progress?
There are two key components.
1. First, it involves breaking down any project into micro goals.
From the article:
Let’s say you’re an editor with a weekly newsletter to write. Rather than approach that task as “Write Monday’s newsletter,” break down the very first steps you have to take and keep slicing them up into tiny, easily achievable micro-goals, then celebrate each achievement. Step 1: Open a Google Doc. Step 2: Name that Google Doc. Step 3: Write a single sentence. And so on.
There's an important principle at work here. When you break things down into micro goals, starting seems much easier.
There's a saying I was taught a while ago that applies here:
By the mile, it's a trial. By the yard, it's hard. But by the inch, it's a cinch.
By breaking down things into tiny micro-goals, things begin to seem more achievable. You're no longer thinking about having to climb the whole mountain; just putting on your boots.
So that's the first piece: break things down into micro goals.
2. Here's the second: just get started.
Once you get started on a micro goal, the law of momentum begins to take over. You've started the micro goal. It was easy enough, so why not go on to the next step?
Ok, back to my story.
I read the article and decided to give it a try. What was my goal? Write for just five minutes. No editing. No worrying about whether the content was good or not. Just get some words on the page.
Want to know what happened?
I broke through the rut.
My goal was to write for 5 minutes, but once I started, things flowed and I wrote for 30 minutes. That may not sound like a big victory, but for someone that felt really stuck for several weeks, it was tremendous.
The next time you feel like you're stuck in a rut and not making progress on your goals, try breaking things down into micro goals and see what happens.
So what about you? What's a project or goal that's been on your mind? What do you think has been holding you back?
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[image by pixabay]