Dream Big, Plan Small
A new year is just around the corner. With the new year comes the desire for big commitments and big dreams. The year at this point is a blank canvass with unlimited possibility. It is an easy thing to dream big when faced with 365 blank days.
Will you write the novel you’ve always wanted to?
Will you go on the dream vacation?
Will you lose the weight?
Will you find love?
All questions that seem to come to mind as we close down a old year and prepare for the one to come.
I hate resolutions. I hate them for the same reason that so many others do. We dream big and set ourselves up for great things on the first day of the year. We may be successful at keeping the promise to our self. We may have a series of wins. But what usually happens is the zeal of starting something new wears off and we find that our whole life didn’t change in just a couple of weeks. The excitement fades and soon with it the commitment. What follows is our mind reinforcing the belief that the dream was too big, the goals to hard, and we settle in to living the exact same life with the same results as we had the previous year.
Several years ago I learned about the Theme System created by Myke Hurley and CGP Grey. I adopted the system and started seeing real changes in my life and steady progression of growth year over year.
At the heart of it is the BIG dream. The day to day nuts and bolts of it are much smaller and much more achievable. I’m not here to dissuade you from the BIG dream. I am here to tell you to make your goals much smaller. Ridiculously small so that they are achievable and can be built upon and so the you keep going.
As an example. Maybe your big dream is to redo your bedroom into a comfortable welcoming place. The Big Dream is the finished room. With the right paint and lights and decor and bedding. Making everything just right in a day is an overwhelming idea that leads us to not doing anything at all and we end up making do with the mismatched end tables left over from college, the pillow that is not much better than a sack of rags, and lights that a coal miner would be ashamed of.
Instead of making the big dream happen tomorrow start with something small. Goal 1: pick three paint colors you like. Goal 2: Narrow three colors to 2. Goal 3: Choose which of the two colors you like the most. Now that you’ve accomplished something you can move on to the next series of small but achievable goals. Obtain the paint, buy a paintbrush etc…
Dream big. Plan Small. This is how you’re going to change your year.
