Module 8 · Goals & direction · Lesson 5 of 8

From a goal to this week’s action

Big goals are reached through small actions on ordinary days. Always know the next step and when you will take it.

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The idea

A goal like “change careers” or “save for a home” is too big to act on directly. You cannot do “change careers” on a Wednesday evening. What you can do is update your CV, message one person in the field, or research one course.

Breaking a goal down means working backwards from the outcome to something you can do this week. Ask: what has to be true for this goal to happen? What has to happen before that? Keep going until you reach a step small enough to do in an hour or less. That is the next step.

Then give that step a time and place: “Thursday at 7pm, at the kitchen table, I will write the first draft of my CV.” Research on implementation intentions suggests that deciding when and where makes a step much more likely to happen than simply intending to do it.

Why it matters

Goals move through small actions on ordinary days. A goal without a known next step is a goal that waits — and research suggests unfinished goals keep tugging at the mind until there is a concrete plan for them.

See it happen

Kaveh wants to become a teacher but has been thinking about it for two years without doing anything. The goal feels huge and far away.

The first read

Becoming a teacher is a big life decision, so it makes sense to think about it carefully until he feels ready to commit.

With this idea

He works backwards: a training course, which needs an application, which needs research. This week’s step: on Saturday morning, find three training courses and note their entry requirements. The goal starts moving.

What changed

He broke the goal down until he reached a step he could take this week.

Easy to get wrong

• Planning every step in advance. Plans change; you only need to know the next step clearly, and roughly where you are heading.
• Choosing a “next step” that is really a project — “sort out finances” — rather than one action.

What this rests on

Well studied. Researchers have studied this a good deal. The core idea holds up, though details vary between people and settings.

• Peter Gollwitzer — implementation intentions (1999), with a 2006 review by Gollwitzer & Sheeran — Deciding in advance when, where and how you will act (“if it is 7pm on Thursday, I will…”) makes follow-through considerably more likely.
• E. J. Masicampo & Roy Baumeister — Consider it done! (2011) — Unfinished goals tend to intrude on the mind; making a specific plan for them reduced those intrusive thoughts in their experiments.

Try it: Work backwards

1. Write a goal that feels big.
2. Ask “what has to happen before this?” and keep asking until you reach something you could do in an hour.
3. Write it with a day, a time and a place.

Reflect

• Which goal has no known next step at the moment?
• What stops you giving your next steps a time and place?

Use it in the coming days

Add the next step for your main goal as a milestone in My Goals, and put it on your schedule with a time.

Where to do it: My Goals

A milestone in My Goals keeps the next step attached to the goal it serves.