Moving Ahead During Uncertain Times with MicroGoals

How do you want to feel about your life – your work, physical health, role as a parent of adult children living at home, role as a community member, and content planning at the end of the next two weeks?

Easily stated, I want to feel better than I feel right now. I want to feel more satisfied with this situation, even if we are still being asked to stay at home and wear our masks in public.

What are Micro Goals: aren’t they just goals?

Micro-goals are classified as a certain type of goal. They amplify the present moment and reward you for being productive in a way that suits your personality and aligns with your vision and values. They are simple and short term rather than complex and long term. One of the keys to success with micro-goals is with their length: you may quickly experience success and naturally feel compelled to continue with that goal or leverage that micro-goal into a bigger part of your plan or vision.

Examples of Micro Goals:

This morning I worked on my monthly walking goal. I am using steps to measure success and building up to an end-of-January goal: a fourteen mile walk from Ojai to Ventura. 

I have recently restructured this goal because I am speeding up my training, so this micro goal will be increased every two weeks. 

Each day I will aim to meet my standard step goal. If I walk 1,000 steps more, I will reach my “Stretch” goal. If I walk 2,000 steps more, I will reach my “Damn Girl you are a superstar” goal.

I have made an ordinary short term goal fun, humorous, and in chunks is time limited. I have a reward at the end I find ridiculously fui and right now in September, slightly unreachable.

Today, I am helping to motivate myself to continue with other daily tasks as I stride my way into my two-week-goals so that I may more likely reach my next level in my walking goals.

Other micro goals may be trying meatless Mondays throughout the month of September, learning the basics of a musical instrument, writing an instagram post, a story and a reel every day for two weeks. Short, fun, fast success or not. You get to try it out (beyond the “first time”) and decide to continue or modify your goal based on results and data.

I have also found there are often times barriers because I just don’t feel like taking the extra steps, making the additional phone calls or emails, cleaning that drawer out today, fill in your task you don’t want to do here.

For those times when you just aren’t “feeling it” – and yes, they happen more than we might think during “these uncertain times.”

After I finished my morning walking today, I took note of the extra benefits to walking that don’t relate directly to the number of steps I have taken. I wrote this write into the notes section of my phone:

Because I walked farther than I wanted to, the rewards were plentiful:

1. I smelled freshly mown grass (a favorite smell)

2. I heard a birdsong I had never heard

3. I got closer to the end result I’m aiming for

4. I built more self trust

5. I feel better about myself

6. I was able to say good morning to a man working in the park, cleaning trash.  I imagine he is often “invisible” as he works, I wanted him to be seen and to receive a happy, grateful smile.

7. I prayed for children past, present and future who will play here.

8. I walked on a baseball/softball field, something I haven’t done in years. The simplicity of this made me feel grateful and content.

9. I hugged a new-to-me tree. 

10. When I get home I will write, I will publish, I will scoop up dangling threads, I will choose to be happy.

A-ha moment, in the writing!

I just realized while I didn’t know it at the time, writing an occasional list of celebration when I achieve my goals unexpectedly is a great idea!

Also, when I got home, I did do those tasks. I finished some graphics, I posted to two of my facebook groups, I am now finishing up this blog post. And I have been cheerful the whole time, even making plans with my sometimes reclusive son for this afternoon.

End Result: I felt incredibly accomplished and ready for the next item on my agenda. I have gotten more and more accomplished today – this morning – than I did all day yesterday.

Creating a Successful Micro Goals is as easy as starting where you are:

One simple way to consider what to use as a micro goal, I like to “look out over the future” and ask what I want to see in the next week or two weeks. Then I reverse engineer my way back to the present – and this is where many of my micro goals come into being.

I want to be able to look back at my calendar and say “I wrote my haiku every day, I marketed my business on these social media platforms every day, I made a list of ways to generate income with the skills I have right now.”

I started getting serious about the effectiveness of micro goals when I started writing haiku every day. It is a micro goal because the daily task is so small. The length of time, however, isn’t micro at all.

I started writing haiku again and used it as my first goal in a long time because I asked myself this question, which I ask you to ask yourself as well.

What is it that used to make me feel better in the past?

What short amount of time and energy activity has been known to lift you from sadness to joy or at least “an improvement”?

You can go back as far as childhood: recently my daughter has started jump roping again and is having a blast at it – something that brought her alive as a child will help her reach her health goals as an adult AND she is still having a blast!

What do you like to do that will support how you want to feel in two weeks that utilizes what you have at your disposal where you are right now?

Take your time before you answer – and when you do, it would be great for you to join the Bridge to the New Year facebook group where we discuss goals and micro goals all year long as you create your most satisfying, creative life.

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Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us now in in Bridge to the New Year to reflect, connect, intend and take passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2021