To move ahead from where you are today, you will need to learn how and then do something to get you there. While this might seem obvious, it often stops people before they even get going. As soon as you target a destination, you create a gap. A gap can be uncomfortable, especially if you do not know how to bridge it. This is also why people often do not even set goals in the first place. If you don’t set a goal, you won’t have to do anything uncomfortable. When you break the goal down into smaller pieces it becomes more tangible. Therefore, rather than setting a goal to have $1 million dollars invested by the time you are ready to leave work in 30 years, set a goal to save $100 this month. Or, if you want to pay off your mortgage in 10 years, start with a goal to call the bank to have them make an extra $100 payment each month. It just takes one small step at a time.

Why? Because a one percent change in direction maintained continuously will build on itself, and eventually become a much bigger change. If you do something easy to implement, you will gain confidence and reinforce the idea that you can make things happen. For example, rather than starting out planning your life goals and making drastic changes to your spending, how about starting by committing to keep all the receipts from any purchases made the next day, the next week and the next month. Then add another step and decide to keep the receipts and record them so you can review them later. Then, add another step and keep the receipts, record them and organize them into categories. Then add another step to keep the receipts, record them in their categories and analyze the categories for possible adjustments, future planning and on and on. It is a process that, once started, is constantly evolving.