Small Goals Add up to Big Success

I had a huge setback since I wrote my last post. I got knocked unconscious for about 20 minutes and ended up with a concussion. I was hauling 2 big garbage cans down our driveway and fell to the hard pavement, cutting me up pretty bad. The strange thing is I don’t remember any of that or even walking back to the house.

I woke up the next morning and saw all the bandages on. My wife asked me how I felt and I still couldn’t remember a thing. And, wow, does a concussion give you a spinning head, loss of balance, shaky eyesight and, if that’s not enough, it plays with your brain and messes up your thinking.

So, now I have a new goal which is to get better as quickly as possible. I’m preaching to myself about goal setting and how to reach that goal. What I write now about goal setting can apply to almost any goal.

I will never forget the incredible Joe Simpson and the goals that he set to save his life. Joe fell high in the frozen mountains of Peru resulting in a compound fracture in his leg that left his shin bone shoved up into his kneecap. He set his mind on a huge goal which was simply not to die. He broke that big goal into small, 20-minute steps. He would pick a spot maybe a hundred meters ahead, look at his watch and say to himself, “I am going to reach that spot in 20 minutes.” And, yes, that big goal of survival broken down into small goals eventually got him to safety and saved the life of Joe Simpson.

The huge lesson I learned from his story, and one that we all should take note of, is to first set the big goals that we want to achieve and, then, break it down into small doable steps. This is so very important!

That is exactly what I began doing after my accident. With a concussion, your symptoms can last anywhere from a couple weeks to months and even years. We all need to remember that with almost every goal you will experience starts and stops and, sometimes, there is even some backtracking. Know that it helps not to get overly discouraged and having small goals and small successes really helps with that.

So, that is my plan and I will stick with it till I am totally better. One small step at a time.