The truth is that you can’t do it right now otherwise it wouldn’t be a goal. With your current skillset, mindset, discipline and identity, you can’t achieve your goal right now. We always set goals that are just out of our reach. That’s the purpose of it — to give us something to strive for. If someone could comfortably run 10km then their New Year’s Resolution wouldn’t be to be able to comfortably run 4km. We don’t set goals that sit within our current realm of possibility. That wouldn’t make any sense.

To reach a goal, you’ll have to do things that you’ve never done before. Of course you should feel scared. It would be crazy not to. You have to push yourself past your current limitations. You have to use energy and endure pain that you’ve endured before. It’s all uncertain and therefore should cause us anxiety and stress. We can’t possibly predict how we’ll react to the situation because it’s not something that we’ve done before.

Worry less about the “how” things are going to happen. The only thing we really need to concern ourselves with is where we’re going and then remember that you’re going to get there. Sure, have a general outline, have values that you’re going to live by but if we sit here and wait for the perfect plan to formulate in our brains then we’ll die long before we’re ready to go.

As soon as we take the first step, everything changes. Things happen that we didn’t expect, both good and bad, and then we have to react accordingly. One step at a time, just figure out the next step.

Newton’s third law states that:

Every action is met with an opposite and equal reaction.

If we look holistically at all the massive actions that we have to take to achieve our goal then we’ll see all the massive opposite and equal reactions that will happen to us. Make your life easier by looking at the next and smallest step that you can take. There will still be opposition but they will be easily manageable and you’ll be easily able to handle it.

If you want to be stronger — do one more pushup.

If you want to make more sales — send one more email or make one more call.

If you want write more — write another sentence.

If we re-frame success as “the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal” then any small step we take towards our goal is success. If we break it down to a small step that we can do every day, then we’re successful every day.

Even if you had the worst day ever, you’re exhausted, everything is crashing down around you, you can still take one more step towards your goals. Nothing can stop you from taking another step towards your goals and hence nothing can stop you from achieving success unless you quit.