“People don’t get overwhelmed by too much to do, people get overwhelmed by being too vague about whatever it is they have to do.” ~ T.K. Coleman

This is a quote that I heard recently talking on the subject of “having so many things you are overwhelmed.”

What David Alan calls “The amorphous blob of undoability.”

I was able to be incredibly productive this last month, and I believe I can directly attribute this to the topic of these quotes. So often, we set goals for ourselves that we are passionate about. We think of how much we’ll be able to improve and how good life will look after achieving this goal.

Here’s the problem: excitement very rarely lasts, and will-power can only go so far. We set these crazy goals of what we want to achieve by a certain time, but then we get lost somewhere in the abyss of ambiguous goals.

There are two things I recommend for this. The first thing is to simply set smaller goals. I’m talking really, really small goals. The daily kind of goals. Instead of saying “I’m going to be able to do 100 pushups in three months,” say “I’m going to do 1 pushup every day for a month.” This may seem like you are undercutting yourself a little bit, but you’re not. Here’s why: You probably aren’t only going to do one pushup. Once you’re down on the ground ready to do your pushup, you’re probably going to do more. It was much easier to think and not stress about because you only had one pushup to worry about getting done, but now you’re prepared to do more if you want to.

Even if you did only do one pushup every day, you are still training yourself to get into that habit of doing pushups. Also, by only committing a small amount of time and a small amount of energy, you are able to truly see if this thing is something you really want to invest more time into.

The other thing that may help you complete some of those long-term goals is to make some lists. First off, make a list of exactly what you want to be able to say after completing your goal. What do you want to be able to say you have learned/accomplished at the end?

Make another list explaining what the steps are that you can take right now to make progress toward that goal.

Make another list with everything that could possibly make you miss your goal. Everything. I’m talking “family comes into town, became unmotivated, worked 80 hours this week” anything that could possibly go wrong. You write it down, then you come up with solutions to every problem you can. After you’ve gone through your goals and have laid out plans for what to do now and how to solve future problems, it’s time to show someone else.

It’s so much easier to stay on track with goals if you have someone else who is is also trying to make some sort of goals. Show each other these goals and give them access to the problems and solutions you said could arise. Now you have no excuse to not get it done. You can’t say “something unexpected came up” because you should have anticipated those things.

I think if you use both of these strategies, you unlock a truly deadly combination of potential.

Make small goals, plan your success, and be prepared for where failure tries to strike.