How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time, right?  How do you achieve a goal?  One step at a time.

You have already developed your personal mission statement; created a wish list of everything you want to be, do, and have; and decided which wishes are going to be your goals.  Now it is time to break these goals down to their smallest parts to determine what the steps will be achieving your goal.

To break the goal into its smallest parts, you need to think about everything you will need to do to get from where you are right now to where you will be when you achieve your goal.  Think of it as the detailed “driving directions” you get when you mapquest a location. 

After breaking the goal into its smallest parts, you need to give yourself deadlines on when to reach each step.  To do this, determine how long it will take to do each step and how much time you can devote to this step in light of other roles and responsibilities in your life. 

By doing these 2 steps, you are creating a specific plan of action for each goal.  You know what the desired result is (the goal), you know how the goal lines up with your values (your mission statement and other criteria), you know what you steps are necessary to achieve the goal, and you know when you plan to check each step off your to do list.

Take a look at one of my goals as an example. 

Run through this process with each of your goals.  This will take some time to do.  As you create steps for the next goals, your timeline may change.  It is probably easiest to list the steps for each goal and then goal back to fill in the deadlines as you imagine how much time you will spend on all of the steps together.

Once you have done this, it is time to get to work.  Next time, we will look at ways to help strategize your time to actually get things done on each goal.  In the meantime, start tackling your goals like you would eating an elephant, one bite at a time.

Next week, I will review how to break each goal into manageable parts so that the goals can actually be achieve.  In the meantime, you may want to check out my other posts in this series:

Do You Have a Program to Set Goals?
Develop a Personal Mission Statement
Create Your Wish List:  A List of Everything You Want To Be, Do, and Have
From Wishes to Dreams, From Dreams to Goals

If you are working on your goals, leave a link in the messages below.  I’d love to hear about your progress.

This post is part of Shannon’s Works for Me Wednesday, which is being hosted by Melanie at Don’t Try This at Home.  Be sure to check out all the other entries.  It is a wealth of information  with many great tips and resources. 

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