From Stepping Stones to Success: How Short-Term Goals Pave the Way to Long-Term Achievement
Imagine you’re on a hiking trail, strolling through the crisp air and immersing yourself in the earthy scent of pine surrounding you…sounds great, right? As you venture deeper into your hike, embracing the nature around you, you encounter a stream blocking the path you’ve been on. You can either turn around or find a way across to continue and finish the refreshing hike you set out upon. After a brief moment, you notice its clear waters babbling over smooth, sunlit stones. One by one, you navigate the perfectly placed series of stepping stones, each one a small victory, bringing you closer to your goal—reaching the other side and continuing your hike.
But then, as you prepare to leap to the first stone, you notice it’s missing. Undeterred, you take a running start and jump to the second stone—game on! Your heart races with determination, but your progress falters as you realize the third stone is also absent. You glance at the fourth—another gap. Suddenly, what was once a straightforward path has become a daunting challenge, and you find yourself at a standstill, contemplating how to move forward. Pause.
Now imagine this scene in real life with the goals you set forth for yourself. You begin this journey toward a goal and notice obstacles. Determined, you continue forward, but you forgot to set out the stepping stones to help you cross over gentle waters. You set this long-term goal for yourself; let’s make sure you include those stepping stones. The water’s stepping stones symbolize the short-term goals we need to set for ourselves, because each one offers crucial support on our journey. There are also places where we can pause and reflect, reassess, or regroup.
Long-term goals are important, but when we set them without milestones, we can get lost, discouraged, or blinded when our eyes focus solely on the prize. Short-term goals are just as important as long-term goals—one keeps you oriented, while the other reminds us of the direction and purpose of what we’re working toward. Short-term goals offer the foundational support needed to assist us in reaching that long-term goal. If we don't have the stepping stones to cross the river, or if we're missing multiple stones, the journey becomes more difficult or nearly impossible. Set yourself up for success by breaking down larger objectives into smaller, manageable, realistic tasks. Watch how these long-term goals not only become more achievable but are also propelled by the mini achievements of short-term goals you set. Each stepping stone you jump to provides positive reinforcement that propels your inner drive, enhances motivation, and promotes the necessary confidence to continue along the journey to the bigger goal.
**Gentle reminder: Just because you set out stepping stones doesn’t mean that your path will be an easy one. You might find a cracked stone, a sunken stone, or crashing waves covering a stone—that’s a part of life. Reset and refocus by assessing the stones in front of you. Adjust your approach, rebalance yourself, jump to nearby rocks, and utilize the resilience deep within you. Every path may not be the clearest, but every challenge allows an opportunity for growth. You got this!
Further reading about short and long-term goals:
https://www.usemotion.com/blog/short-term-goals
https://www.ted.com/playlists/541/goals
Apps to help with motivation, goal tracking, and productivity:
Strides App is an app that assists with goal-tracking and forming new habits. Has reminders, analytics, schedule creation, and visual progress reports. Syncs across apps but IOS only.
ClickUp App is a productivity app that has preloaded templates, if wanted, but also incorporates goal-setting, habit tracking, task organization, task breakdowns, customizable task status prioritization, calendar time-blocks, reminders, etc. Syncs across devices but may have learning curves and is tailored towards complex project management.
Todoist App is an app where you can add, organize, and prioritize tasks while effortlessly making to-do lists. Encompassing many of the features of clickup it also has note-taking and is allows invites to collaborate/share with others. This app does not have time-blocking features.
TickTick App is an app that is highly popular due to its simple nature and features! TickTick incorporates, again, many of the above mentioned features of the other apps and it goes one step further by including calendar integration, built in pomodoro timer personalized summaries, and achievement scores to further analyze workflows!
Trello App is another popular app, not only because of its effectiveness, but also because it is visually appealing and intuitive. Trello, again includes many of the above mentioned features, and it also has an automate future that assists with repetitive tasks–simplifying those to-do lists!
#goalsetting #personaldevelopment #achieveyourgoals #successmindset #motivationmonday #shorttermgoals #milestones #smallwins #dailygoals #focusontoday #futureplanning #visionboard #dreambig #worksmart #organization #resilience #motivation #grow #productive #smart #succeed #achieve #mentalhealth #therapy #therapist
