When You Know What to Do but Not Where to Start

The most common thing I hear from new clients is "something has to change, but I don't know what that is."

We humans can be very very bad with our ability to be organized when we are overwhelmed. When we want a huge change, we want it all at once.

Unfortunately, nothing changes all at once, but change can come slowly over time if we take small, actionable steps toward it.

While this is especially true for major change, it is also true for everyday motivation.

Small, actionable steps will help you through your days, even more so on the days you can't seem to stay focused or get motivated, or on days you are struggling with your self-care practices.

Those steps will also snowball, and help you to get more done.

By actually accomplishing a task, and seeing the actual length of time it took and the amount of energy you had to put into it, you can more easily evaluate other tasks.

When this happens, tasks you may have been avoiding because you thought they would too time intensive become less overwhelming, and tasks that might need more energy put into them can be prioritized better.

This is how one small step can snowball into you easily prioritizing and accomplishing tasks, with the knowledge of what it will actually take to accomplish them as guidance.

Why One Small Step is the Answer

We cannot make huge, sweeping changes all at once. When you tell yourself you have to "change your life," that is incredibly overwhelming, and it's no wonder that you might decide to just eat a pizza instead (I am speaking from some experience).

That said, if you decide you want to do something more specific, like "eat at home more," then break that down into "cook easy meals" and "buy grab and go items to eat", it seems much easier to accomplish, and that can be a smaller step in the "change your life" plan.

You have to break things down to make them feel achievable. Otherwise, you'll most likely never even try.

Smalls Steps For All the Things (and One Final Thing)

Below, I've listed some common larger goals, and then broken them down into smaller steps.

Remember, also, that if you are feeling the need to just NOT do something, or you are doing something repeatedly that is making you miserable - you do not have to do it. Period. You can stop doing that thing.

If that thing is absolutely required, reassess it and see if you can determine exactly what it is that is making it so hard to get done. Small tweaks can do wonders.

Small Steps at Home

Clean the Whole House

Clean one small section of one part of your home: wipe down the bathroom counter, load the dishes, clear off the coffee table
Do one task to move toward a cleaner home: sort through accumulated mail, do one load of laundry, take out the trash

Meal Plan for the Entire Week

Prep one ingredient you need for multiple meals: chop red bell peppers, peel and dice onions, cook and shred chicken (Pro Tip: You can do this as soon as you get the items home from the store and store them in airtight containers, then they are ready to go when you are!)
Prep one set of meals for the week, preferably the most important: Need to take lunches to work? Prep all of those first. Have something going every night this week? Prep your dinners. Make the meals that will make your life easier for that particular week first.

Small Steps at Work

Prep This Entire Presentation:

Work on finalizing one aspect of the presentation: collect or create all the graphics you will need, prep all the text/notes, format all of the handouts or visual aids
Complete one entire slide/visual aid/handout at a time: Get one item completely done, then move to the next

Return All These Calls/Emails:

Return one prioritized group at a time: Urgent, Important, Needs Response, No Rush, etc.
Return by date, one date at a time: Newest? Oldest? Doesn't matter, but return all of one days, then move on.

Small Steps for Your Health

Find a Mental Health Professional

Research: ask your friends for a referral, look up professionals in your area on PsychologyToday.com, call your insurance provider for a list of covered professionals
Confirm availability - you don't want to prepare to see one and find out they aren't available to you for some reason: call to see if they are accepting new patients, check their website for their address to make sure it's accessible, find out about their available appointment times to make sure one works with your schedule.

Start an Exercise Regimen

Find an activity you enjoy: there are so many options for exercise now! swimming, dancing, yoga, zumba, running, fitness classes, spin, hiking, etc.
Do that activity for a set time once (if you enjoy it, continue!): 15-minute walk, 1-hour spin class, 30-minute yoga session

Small Steps for Joy

Find a Different Job

Update Your Professional Contacts: LinkedIn, Any Alumni groups, any job search networks, your resume
Share the desire for a new job with your network: Old colleagues, friends in the community, friends in your industry (if you want to continue in your current industry), family, social groups

Take Up A New Hobby

Find a free online tutorial: Pinterest, a blog post, YouTube, Google, The Spruce
Invest in a few, well-chosen, beginner supplies

Just Start, and Start Small

If there's anything I want you to take from this post, it's to just start, and start small. So often we decide that we can only do the thing if we have all the time, energy and resources to throw behind doing it just.exactly.right.

That's not the case. In fact, most things would never ever get done if all humans adopted that philosophy because we so seldom have the time, energy and resources to do anything exactly right. Also, who's to say what "exactly right" even is?

Keep taking small steps, not only will you get the big things done in your everyday life, but you'll see big changes when you take small steps in your self-care.

For a printable list of small steps I suggest to self-care beginners, click here to get my 10 Beginner Steps to Self-Care