A lot of times, I see people reluctant to begin change, because the whole process just seems too overwhelming. But there’s wisdom in the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

As my I tell my coaching clients, if you want to be more successful, there’s power in chunking things down. To do so, look at where you’re at, where you want to be and write down the first step that you could take to move you from point A to point B. Behaviourists tell us that our chances of doing something and being successful increases to 75 per cent if we write it down, so write your goal down!

Set a number of milestones, instead of one at the end of your goal, to measure your progress and success along the way. Doing this will make you feel good about your progress, because you’ll be in a better position to measure it, to view where you were, where you are and where you want to be. This is so important, because many of us get discouraged when things don’t happen as quickly as we would like. Know that we all historically underestimate how long something will take us, it’s all too common, and one of the primary reasons that so many people abandon their goals along the way.

Next, don’t wait until the very end to celebrate your success. As you reach your sub-milestones, reward yourself along the way. Social scientists tell us that by rewarding our successful milestones along the way, more dopamine is produced, which helps us feel better about ourselves and this in turn increases the chances that we’ll succeed.

And lastly, get your community invested in your goal. You know the saying it takes a village, we achieve more with support. Tell everyone you know about your goal. Doing so makes it a lot harder to abandon it, because you’ll have lots of people checking in on your progress.

Take Action Challenge

What is the first step – maybe a baby step – that you can take, to improve or change the area you want to see a difference in, to increase your chances of success? For example, if weight is an issue, and you don’t exercise, promise yourself to start walking for 15 minutes twice a week. And schedule it in your day timer, so that at the end of the week you can’t say you couldn’t find the time.

As the weeks progress, change things up even more, by adding to your program, looking at what works, what doesn’t, tweaking the rest. If you’re like most people, after a while as you start to feel better, you’ll look at additional things you can do to feel better. In no time at all your focus will be on feeling better and being healthy, rather than on losing weight. To misquote astronaut Neil Armstrong, one small step for man or womankind can result in a giant leap for change. As the Nike ad says, just do it. You’ll be glad you did!