Approaching the end of each year, an often thought about topic is that of setting goals for the new year.  In fact, last year 40% of Americans set goals. Not only last year, but for the past  4,000 years,  humans have kept traditions of setting new year goals or resolutions!  Why is it that only 8% of those who set new year goals or resolutions end up keeping them?

(Photo: airandspace.si.edu)

Why?  Often it is because the goal we set can seem daunting and we quickly lose the drive and motivation to accomplish the goal. Or perhaps we never gathered the support necessary to accomplish the task.  Maybe the goal was simply too big a bite to swallow.

What if there was a better way?  The good news is, there is.

Malcom Gladwell is well-known for developing the theory of the “10,000 hour rule“, which states in part, that in order to master a skill, 10,000 hours of work is required achieve mastery of that skill.  Accordingly, if we want to achieve a specific end, we need to complete steady, sustained effort towards accomplishing the goal.

If you set out to prepare for a 100K trail race, you don’t start out running 20 or 30 miles per day.  Your body can’t give that kind of effort, yet.  Instead, you run consistently throughout the week, slowly increasing your mileage to reach the goal of running 62 miles of sustainable effort on two feet.

As a Training Officer in a Harrier squadron, you advise your pilots to spend a minimum of one hour a day in the study of their craft.  To make the big hour more productive and humanly sustainable, break the hour down into 20 minute increments.  Focus for 20 minutes on aircraft systems and emergency procedures, 20 minutes studying tactics, and 20 minutes studying how the weapon systems function. This one hour of study, five days a week over the course of a year means that your pilots have the information fresh on their minds–which further develops their internal discipline and time management skills.  You can’t be an expert by wishing it or forcing it.  With steady, consistent study combined with hands-on practice in the aircraft, you can become master of your trade.

When writing a 6,000 word research paper, you must incrementally do the research and commit yourself to writing a sustainable 500 words per day – it is steps like this that enable us to reach our goals.

Be encouraged.  As Theodore Melfi says, “change is incremental.  Change is small.”  So, as you begin to think about the goals you are going to set for the new year; spend time thinking about the small, incremental steps, you can take to ultimately reach your goals.  The beautiful thing about the small, incremental steps is that they not only lead us to the achievement of our goals, but they also increase our confidence on a daily basis as we not only build consistency, but also our self-discipline.