Accomplish small tasks to achieve BIG goals.

I’m simultaneously super excited, and incredibly frustrated at the moment.  I’m on the edge of great things, but they are still in the development and birthing process.  There is so much on my list of goals that it is almost overwhelming and I don’t know which end of the list I should start with.  I have goals for personal, professional, and family life that are filling me with fire and ideas feel like they are stirring my soul, but my day to day life seems to be filled with chaos and frustration.  I feel like I’m doing sled pushes uphill!  I know that will pay dividends (hello glute muscles!), but it’s tough going in the meantime.

I’ve been mulling these ideas over for a a few weeks, and my normal response would be to just give up, or make great aspirations, tell everyone, and then have it last a few weeks before life was again filled with the busyness of daily humdrum that absorbs each day.  I’ve been frustrated with settling for less than what I know I am capable of being and accomplishing, so I needed an action plan for permanent change.  To do that I knew I needed to create new habits for the small stuff.  This would free up the time and attention that I need to accomplish the big stuff.  Instead of drawing up a list of habits that I knew wouldn’t stick longer than a few weeks, I decided to focus on just 2 things.  I decided that to maximise my time each day I needed to wake up at 5am each morning and to clear some of the clutter in my mind and the house I decided to make my bed each day.  This meant I would be utilising ‘extra’ hours in the day, and the 1 minute that it takes to make my bed each day makes my room look cleaner and less cluttered, and it is one step towards a clearer house.  My room can become a refuge and when nothing else in the house is clean, but I don’t have to time to deal with it, I can retreat to a clear space in my room and have the focus I need.

Then I thought, what if I can’t even stick to those 2 things long enough for them to become a habit?! So I did what I also do in training when the session seems like too much.  I break it down to bite size chunks, and tick off each little section.  Instead of a month of bed making at 5am I decided to do it for one week.  I can do that.  I mean, if I can’t make my bed for a week in a row then I’m going the wrong way about being an adult!

So here I am, writing to you, 3 days in to my little goals. So far I’ve done okay.  I’ve had to stretch out my wake-up time to 5.20, because I haven’t quite been getting to bed early enough, but I am still getting so much more done in the day.  My chores in the house are done early enough to allow for extra paid work to happen, and I’ve been early to daycare drop off every single day (which if you know me, you know that’s a BIG deal).  My bed has also been made every day, although sometimes I have forgotten until a little later on in the morning, but the great thing is that it’s encouraging me to take an extra minute or two to clear the little things that mess up my room each day.  It makes for a less stressed Bek!

Last year was a year of preparation, and I used the mantra “Discomfort is the catalyst for change” for all the tough stuff, and it really worked.  This year however, big changes are happening and the phrase, “Accomplish small tasks to achieve big goals” is starting to shape my thinking.  This year is a year of action and discovery.  I’m taking small steps at a time to action change and I know that when I look back at the end of the year, life will look nothing like where I started.