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I want to make a million dollars!  I want to lose 100 pounds!  I want to have a successful business of my own and quit my job!  I want to make 50 sales this month!

Do these statements look familiar to you?  Maybe you have one or two of them on your list of goals. All too often, when someone starts setting goals for themselves, they come up with a list like this. In and of itself, there is no problem with having big goals. I have big goals as I’m sure you do. The problem often comes when we have a really big goal, but no smaller goals to get there.

Have you ever seen the movie “What About Bob?” with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss?  (If you haven’t, go rent it or something, its hilarious!)  In this movie is mentioned “Baby Steps.”  I know that we all have heard the term before when applied to accomplishing larger things in life, but I want to come back to it for a few minutes here and apply it to your goals.

Once you have established a large goal for yourself, then try to come up with some of the baby step type of goals to reach that larger goal. For example, if you wanted to lose 100 pounds, write a list of smaller goals down that you think will help you to achieve the larger goal. Maybe change your diet, drink less soda, walk or workout a few times per week. These are all smaller goals to set to help you achieve the “biggie.”

In the last paragraph, I mentioned to write down smaller goals that you think will help you to achieve the larger goal. Whether all of your ideas will be good ones or not, just start writing that list. In fact, write down as many baby step type goals as you can think of. Some of them might be fruitcake ideas, but some of them will probably work really well in your situation.  Just start writing that list.

Take as much time as you need to write your list. If it takes you two weeks to do it, then that’s fine. Ideally, you want it to be as large as possible. After you are finished with your list, go through it and determine what smaller goals you can start to accomplish right now that will work toward achieving the big goal. Its ok if some of your ideas don’t pan out right away. The point is to take action NOW on your baby step list.

Its alright with me if you think it’s a little silly with the terminology, but these type of techniques work for accomplishing your long term, larger goals. The worst thing to do is to write your big goal and then do nothing about it. To not work toward it because you don’t know how or it is just to big to accomplish without hitting other milestones first.

By having your list of smaller goals, it will start to motivate you when those are accomplished and it will get your creative juices flowing to think of more possibilities for accomplishing the big goals. I hope this little article helps you to find different and creative ways to achieving your own large goals.

To be sure, many of you have set goals before. Many of you have failed to achieve those goals. There may be a reason why those goals went unachieved. It might be that you did not have a specific plan of action to accomplish your goals.

Setting a goal is only half of the process. The other half is much more important in my view. The other half of the goal setting process is to create the plan for achieving that goal. Please do not overlook this all important step!

Now I don’t know you, but chances are that if you just set a random goal, it will probably not be achieved. Why is this? Let’s say that you want to go somewhere that you have never been to. You know what the destination is but now you need the map. The map is your plan for attaining your goal!

Creating your plan is very simple. After you have written your goal down, break it into smaller chunks. Call these smaller chunks goals themselves, if you wish. These are scheduled activities that you will do over a period of time. It can be days, weeks or even years, depending on the goal.

It is alright if your goal plan is not perfect at this point. Sometimes we do not know every step of the way and we have to figure out our plan as we go. That is perfectly alright. Just write down what you do know you need to get done. It may be vague, it may be incomplete. Your plan should be flexible and you will be updating it as you go. Each task completed will move you closer to completing your primary goal.

Basically, your goal should just be a series of steps. These are the things you need to get done in order for you to accomplish your goal. It is like cooking a nice dish, say lasagna. The goal is to make it, but the ingredients and what you do with those ingredients are your plan.

Creating a goal plan is frequently overlooked, and many people discipline themselves to write their goals every day but create no plan! So make sure you take the time to decide where you want to go (your goals) and then create a plan that will tell you how to get there!

Many of us have more than one goal we would like to achieve. Sit down and really think of a goal plan for each one. Start doing the little tasks that you have written down and soon you will be accomplishing your goals and therefore achieving your dreams!