The Simple Steps to Avoid Getting Overwhelmed By Your Big Projects and Goals

Most of the things we want to do and create in our lives are big.

Like, really big.

Like, certainly can’t-be-done-in-an-afternoon big.

They may be too big to accomplish in a month. Or even a year.

So when we sit down to think about these big projects and life goals we have for ourselves, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by the enormity of it all and not know where to start.

We might even convince ourselves that it’s impossible and give up before giving it a chance.

Yet we know that none of our big amazing life goals are going to get done on their own.

So what does it take to get started?

Every Big Goals is Composed of Many Little Goals

You’ve undoubtedly heard this a thousand times already, but the way to make progress on big goals and projects is to start breaking them down into smaller pieces.

“Each journey is composed of a thousand steps,” or so they say. So why would your life goals be any different?

So start by defining the smaller steps you need to take.

If you’re feeling paralyzed by the next step, then it’s too big. Your actual next step is to break it down into “step-sized” pieces.

If you don’t know how to break down your project down into smaller steps, then your next step is to figure that out.

Breaking Projects Into Smaller Steps Is Powerful

Over time this technique of breaking projects down into smaller steps will become second nature to you.

Not only will you be getting more done, but you’ll actually start to feel more calm and relaxed about all of it soon too.

This process shift can be an incredibly helpful, especially if you’re the type of person that gets too paralyzed to start something at 11 am because you know you have to be somewhere at 3 pm.

If the steps are small enough you’ll start to see what you can do and start making progress on with the smaller bits of time you have.

How to Break Projects Down Into Steps

There are lots of different ways to go about breaking a project into smaller steps, but I’ll share my preferred strategy to get you started.

For smaller projects, you usually can just sit down and list what needs to happen.

Even if you can’t envision the project the whole way through, even nailing down the first three steps can be enough to get you started. Further steps will get illuminated from there.

For larger projects, I personally find it handy to first break a project or goal into three different stages; beginning, middle, and end (or ongoing).

From there I’ll start to plot out what pieces of the project need to go in each stage.

• What steps would you need to take to get started?

• What steps would you take to build upon things once it’s up and running?

• What steps would you take as you’re getting closer to finishing or at a stage where the project is up and running?

It’s okay if you don’t know all the steps yet. This exercise is just to start breaking it down into more manageable pieces.

As you do this, break the steps down into as small of pieces as you can. Maybe as you start they might become chunks you could do in an hour or less, but once you’ve been at it for awhile you might see the value in breaking steps down even further.

The reason for this is that you want to give yourself faith that you can start crossing things off the list as soon as you’re ready.

What If You’re Still Getting Stuck?

And if you ever get stuck there are two important questions to ask yourself.

1. What information am I missing?

Oftentimes indecision stems from a lack of information. If you can define for yourself what information you’re missing, your next step can be making a plan to find out that information.

2. What’s the next best step?

Now that you’ve got all the steps laid out, look at some of the items in the initial phase of the project and pick one (just ONE) thing that you can get done in the next 24 hours.

It doesn’t need to be huge or even extremely consequential. It could be something like Googling an item or reaching out to a potential mentor to see about scheduling a coffee date.

Whatever it is, make it something that you can absolutely, positively get done by this time tomorrow.

And do it. Make it a top priority.