one step at a time

I believe everyone heard about the question, “How do you eat an elephant?”

This is a great question that reminds us about how we tackle huge tasks in life. If your dream is big, how are you going to accomplish it?

The answer – One bite at a time

Every huge success is the result of taking one small step at a time. If you want to lose 10 pounds, you will have to lose your first pound. And to lose your first pound, you will have to either push away the junk food or workout in the gym.

Let’s take exercise and working out at the gym as an example. How do you workout in the gym? How do you do the pushup? One at a time.

Every move and every action started with just one small simple step.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

And all you need to do is to identify the step and then do it.

One Step At A Time

When I look back at my life when I first started blogging, I can’t even get a 500 words article publish. It was very difficult for me because English not my main language and even until today, you can find grammatical errors in my article. Nobody is perfect I guess.

However, that did not deter my spirit to blog. I continued on and I learned to type every single day. Starting with my first paragraph, and then the second paragraph and then the third paragraph and it continues.

And eventually, I got a 500 words article. Today, I can go for more. If you have been following my blog here, you will see that most of my articles are 2000 words and above.

It may still be very challenging for me to come up with such a long article. This is especially true when I’m talking about topics that I’m not really familiar or passionate with. I have to do my research just like many normal people.

The same principle applies in every part of our lives.

If we want to get good at something, we need to do it one step at a time. If we want to achieve our dreams and reach our goals, we have to take one action at a time.

Every master you knew was once a disaster. Nobody was born perfect and nobody achieves overnight success. Even if they did, the success will never be long.

Related reading: 10 Steps How To Live The Successful Life You Wanted

The Chain Effect

domino chain effect

When it comes to taking action, you have to understand why we need to focus on taking just one step.

Everything you do in life has a chain reaction. What did you do after you wake up from your bed each morning? Do you go into the bathroom automatically without thinking much?

Did you brush your teeth after you pee? And what do you do after brushing your teeth? All the actions are in the chain.

Just like for some people once they reach their office, they will make a cup of coffee, and then they will check their emails, and then they will talk to their colleagues, etc.

These are the chain of actions that lead you from one thing to another.

When you do 1 pushup, it leads you to the next. And the second pushup will lead you to the third and so on.

This is why taking one small step is important. It will lead you to the next step.

And this is how successful people build up their amazing results. They take small steps each day and that lead them somewhere else, their small steps bring them to the bigger results that they want in life.

Every Step Counts

No matter how small the step, every step counts.

Imagine that you are trying to build a million-dollar business and you started with $50,000 capital.

In the first year, you lost $40,000 because you spent that money on building and growing your business. Your mistakes cost your too while learning.

In the second year, you lost another $10,000 but you feel like you are doing much better than the first year because things started to move.

And at the third year, you make $100,000. You feel ecstatic and you know you are onto something. So you continue to march forward.

Finally, at the fourth year, you reach your goal and make $1 million from your business.

Now, I would like to ask you, do you think that the first and second year contributed to your success and reaching your goal?

The answer is an absolute YES.

Unfortunately, this is what most people never notice. They thought that they can skip the first 2 years and go straight into the third year, which is the earning year.

When you try to hit the wall with a hammer, what would happen? Well, probably nothing will happen to the wall except for the loud ‘bang’ noise you make.

What if you continue hitting the wall, one time, two times, three times, four times…

And when you reached the 1,000th times, the wall started to break and you have just made a hole in it.

Do you think the previous 999 times contributed to making the hole? You better bet it is.

This is why every step counts. Sometimes we may not see the effect because the step is small, but somehow, the small step is definitely contributing your success.

So take small steps each day and one day, you will see the result accumulate and your hard work will come to fruition.

Recommended reading: 51 Awesome Tips for Success In Business And Life

Be Consistent And Keep Going

keep marching on

You may not see the result coming your way right now, but whatever you do, be consistent with it and keep it going.

Successful people are successful because they are consistent in what they do. They do it every single day, day in and out, day and night, and they work longer hours than normal people.

What you do every single day is more important that what you do once in a while.

Thus, when you see someone achieves an amazing result in life, it is usually not because they are lucky, but because they have been doing it for a long time. They have been taking the small steps every day, for a long time.

Another very important key to remember about being consistent is to never change your goals too often.

Just like eating an elephant, if you take a few bites of elephant A and then change it to elephant B, elephant A will be left unfinished. So stop changing your goals that often.

Majority people who want to build a successful online business make this mistake. They started project A with website A. They put in some effort but when they do not see the result after a month, they switch to another project.

And when the other project is not working, they do something else. They are never consistent with their goals and what they want. They keep changing and they keep jumping from one business to another.

Never let this happen to you. If you want to build a successful business or produce remarkable results in life, you should focus on just a few goals and work on them until you reach them.

Can you imagine Lionel Messi suddenly said wanted to quit football and to play tennis, do you think he would have created the amazing results he had today?

So stick to your dreams and your goals. Work on them until you reach them. You can improve and upgrade your strategy but try not to change your goals that often.

Identifying Your Most Important Goal

So here’s what you can do. Identify your most important goal, break it down into smaller actionable steps and act on those steps each day.

You can have a lot of goals, but you must identify one that is the most important to you and work on it.

When you have too many goals, they may distract you from what you want. So find out what the most important goal that you want to accomplish.

Is it your financial goal? Or is it your health goal? Or maybe your relationship goal?

So do you know how to reach your goal now? One step at a time. And how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Imagine just taking 5 small little actions a day, you will have 5 small victories. After a year, you will have accumulated 1825 small victories; you will be 1825 steps closer to your goals and your dreams.

Do you think you can achieve what you want in life if you acted this way?

This article may contain affiliate links. Meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. As always, I only recommend products and services I trust.

By Shawn Lim

Hi there, this is Shawn. I inspire people to achieve their goals and dreams and to reach for higher success in life. If you want to learn more about me, kindly go to the About page. By the way, have you downloaded your FREE copy of The 90-90-1 Rule? Don't forget to do so. Cheers. :)

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