How to Achieve a Big Goal: 8 Steps

A conversation that I find myself having often with coaching clients is around how to achieve a goal or a big project.  How do we accomplish something that at the outset feels insurmountable, yet is important to us?  

I’ve personally hit many big goals like completing 2 years of Marcothon (more on that below), riding 500 miles on my bike in one-week cycling across the state of North Carolina, completing “The Year of the Travel”, starting two businesses, leaving the comfortable trappings of Corporate America to do my own thing, and starting and maintaining a successful weekly podcast that is in the beginning of its third year. All of these seemed difficult, big, and scary before I did them. Not only have I personally hit many important dreams and goals but I’ve worked alongside many clients as they’ve dreamed, planned, and accomplished their bit scary goals too. It all comes down to following the right steps.

I believe that there are 8 steps to achieving big goals and dreams.   

First: The Firework or Spark) Here we have the idea of what we want to achieve.  This is the spark, the idea, the seed.  The question comes to us “I wonder if I could?” or “Yeah! That sounds like something I want to do or try”. We latch onto this spark and start dreaming. We also decide to take action on the spark.

Second: Faith) We must have a bit of faith in ourselves that we’ll be able to follow through to reach the goal.  We don’t need a lot of faith in the beginning.  We just need enough faith that we get everything in motion. I don’t think faith is the same thing as confidence. Faith is trust in ourselves that we can do what we set our minds to.

Third: Preparation and Planning) This is the biggest most involved step in the process and could probably have its own blog post devoted just to this step, but stick with me here.

We have to create a plan and break the big goal down into actionable, easy baby steps.  You have to set the bar so low that it would be silly to not just do it! Right now, I’m participating in my third year of Marcothon.  This is the practice of running a minimum of 25 minutes or a 5k every day in the month of December.  During Marcothon I typically run the 5k every day so that puts me at about 96.1 miles at the end of the month if all goes as planned.  With a little extra planning, and a few extra miles I could hit 100 miles or more for December.  For me a 5k every day is a very achievable goal, it’s not too much running, it’s not that hard, and it’s mostly fun.  The thing that gets in the way more than my body is actually my mind and mindset. 

There is no way I could go out tomorrow and run 100 miles all in one day, and I probably couldn’t even break it down into 4 back-to-back days at this point in my running career.  I’m not an ultra-runner (yet) and that would be a horrible thing to do to my body.  I share this because, if you’ve been rolling around the idea in your head of doing something big like starting a business you probably aren’t going to out tomorrow and try to launch a new website and sign a lease for space all in one day without having had planned, researched, and taken a lot of steps up that point. 

When you’re making your plan it’s important to also think through any of the pitfalls. What could trip you up? Pitfalls always happen. It’s not just avoiding pitfalls, it’s having a plan for when the pitfalls arise. What could potentially sabotage your success and how will you deal with those pitfalls when you get to them?

The best part of creating a plan is that it allows us to prepare in advance. Preparation is needed at many points in our journey.  For me in Marcothon, I needed a minimum amount of running (also called base miles) in the few months prior to Marcothon to help ensure no injuries during Marcothon and to make sure I’m not so out of shape that I won’t want to keep going once I start.  Then during the challenge, I must look ahead at my day and plan when I’d like to get the run squeezed in.  I often also have a backup plan.  If the run can’t happen at the originally planned time then, when else can I squeeze it in if things go south?  There are other things I need to plan for like having enough clean running clothing, otherwise, I might end up wearing dirty stinky running clothing that hasn’t been washed (this has happened and will probably happen again).  

Creating a well-thought-out plan that includes what to do when you encounter pitfalls could be the most integral part of achieving a big goal.

Fourth: Commitment) Here it’s not that we are committed to the end goal, everyone believes that they are committed to the end goal because everyone wants the feeling of accomplishment and achievement that the end brings.  But no, commitment is actually to the process, the day to day work.  We must be committed to the process.  Commitment to the end goal is not what matters, what matters is a commitment to the process of following through with the baby steps over and over, day after day, to get us to where we need to be.

It can’t be all or nothing with our big dreams and desires.  Big goals and dreams require long term consistent and deliberate effort.  Commitment to a little bit every single day will take you so much further than one big push and then nothing.  In the Yoke and Abundance morning group RAW, an oracle card that we often end up pulling when we use the Denise Linn’s Native Spirit deck is “The Great Mystery”.  In this card, Denise reminds us that we wouldn’t plant seeds today and then dig them up tomorrow if we didn’t see growth.  It’s that way with big goals.  Growth takes time and is only possible when you’re committed to the process. What part of the process are you watering and nourishing? If you are just nourishing the dream and not the process you probably won’t accomplish the goal.

Fifth: Accountability) Accountability is a powerful tool that has helped keep me going on days that I don’t want to keep going.  For instance, last year I was actually horribly sick with a cold/allergies during the first 3 weeks of Marcothon.  There were a lot of days I actually thought I should throw in the towel, but there is a Facebook group that includes everyone in Greensboro who is running Marcothon and I made it a habit to post to the group every time I completed a run.  Knowing I’d be sharing a picture from the end of each run helped keep me going most when I most wanted to quit because I thought about how I’d have to tell that group that I’d quit.  This subtle accountability was enough to deter me from quitting. Having a coach or the support of a group with the same goal is an important part of making it to the end and seeing it through.  

Sixth: Follow Through)  There comes a point for me when I’m working on the goal and I realize I can complete the goal it’s entirely in my sight.  Oddly enough this is when I want to quit and throw in the towel the most.  All of a sudden the hard work that led up to that point seems easy.   All of a sudden it’s hardest for me to access the desire to reach the end.  This happens to me and I can’t believe it’s just me who experiences this feeling. 

When I was getting close to recording the 100th episode of the Yoke and Abundance Podcast I was feeling particularly tired, overworked, and burnt out.  Irrational thoughts would run through my head like “what if you just stopped producing the podcast now?  What if you just make this your last show?  What impact are you really making anyway?  Let’s just quit Alisha”.  Thank God I had planned the round table show that required I show up to talk with other people who I knew had also carved out time to be there, otherwise I might have thrown in the towel then.  It’s that way with Marcothon too, close to the end I start thinking about quitting.  But because I made a commitment to myself, I root into the desire to follow through on what I said I would do.  I don’t want to be a flake that only follows through when I feel like it because the truth of the matter is that I rarely feel like doing anything.  If you’ve made a big commitment to yourself this is a great time to lean on your community or lean on a coach that will help remind you that you made a commitment to yourself (and hopefully others) that will help you follow through on what you said you will do.  

Seventh: Little Celebrations) You are probably going to have the inclination to ignore or discount these last two steps but I’m pleading with you to make them a priority.  We rarely celebrate ourselves.  We think the celebration is for someone else, or for a bigger accomplishment.  That’s NOT true!  Often if we don’t celebrate, no one else is going to celebrate for us.  We have to give our goals and accomplishments meaning.  I celebrate each baby step in Marcothon with a picture.  It sounds little, but to me, it’s the most fun part of the process.  In fact this year I want to try to get a little more creative with my post-run Marcothon Pictures.

Your little celebrations throughout the process will keep you going.  They will help you enjoy and mark the journey but you have to create little celebrations that mean something to you.  Part of why I like to take a picture after every run is because I like to create a big collage at the end of Marcothon with all of the post-run pictures from all 31 days of running.  This is a form of celebration for me.  Pick something to help you celebrate along the way.  Do not wait until you’ve completed the goal to celebrate the steps you’re taking.  Find a way to celebrate the process, this will make the commitment and the process more enjoyable for you. 

Eighth: End Celebration or Reward)  Mark the completion of your goal in a way that’s meaningful to you.  Tell your partner, your friends, your family what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, what it means to you, and then share with them how you want to celebrate or mark what you did.  If the folks you love don’t know it’s important to you they can’t help you celebrate.  At the end of Marcothon, the group that completed the run typically goes to a bar together to celebrate (at least we did before covid).  I personally don’t really like bars, I don’t love having a party on the calendar, I’m an introvert, I don’t even like parties all that much, but I do like getting to come together to mark the end of Marcothon and talk to everyone who completed this silly personal challenge!

I marked the 100th Episode of the podcast with a panel recording that I opened up to the public to participate in too.  If it had not been during a pandemic I would have also celebrated by taking myself out to my favorite restaurant in Greensboro 1618 Downtown, I would have posted up at the bar to people watch and banter with the bartenders, and treated myself to a coursed meal, that is my kind of celebration.  The celebration is important, don’t miss this part.  It does take a little work and thought, it can feel pointless when you’re planning it, but it’s like putting a period at the end of the sentence, you need it to mark the end appropriately.  

Those are the 8 steps to accomplishing big goals! Are there any steps you would add to this process? What helps you achieve your big goals and dreams when they feel difficult? What gives you the extra push when you need it most?

So what’s your big goal, what’s your dream, what do you want to achieve?  Need a little guidance?  Schedule your 30-minute discovery call with me to learn how I can help.