Are You Writing Your Next Steps?

We all have goals we set out to achieve in life — some which can be achieved in minutes, in a day, in a month or some will even take years; whatever the case may be, the first step to achieving those goals is to list them and create actionable bullet points that enable you to keep track of your progress, and have a visual scope of how far long you are to completion.

Why is it better to outline your goals?

First of all, there is a certain sense of accomplishment we feel at being able to tick things off a to-do list. Sometimes, it is easy to think you haven’t made any progress in a particular plan, and when you can visually tally all the things you have done, it pushes you to stay focused.

Secondly, being able to lay out your goals is one challenge, but creating a road map to getting there can sometimes be intimidating. To-do-lists with things like “Visit my parents by the end of the month,” “Buy new tyres for the car,” “Book a flight for family holiday” — on a handwritten sticky note or as a reminder on your phone is about enough. But with complex plans and long term goals, writing down “Start MBA part-time classes” may not be enough.

Why, you ask? Typically, when you have such a broad goal, it is easy to feel stuck because you do not know where to begin. Fast forward a week or a month and you realize you haven’t made any significant progress starting your MBA classes because you didn’t define your “next steps”.

This is where the road map comes in.

“Next steps” are actionable tasks or to-do’s that is a break down of a much bigger goal into small doable tasks. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized because the reason most people never act on their goals is that they spend more time trying to figure out “how to start” than actually starting. This time can linger for so long that it may render some of your goals redundant.

Imagine you are marketing manager in a startup and you pen down “Create launch plan for company products” with no actions to follow; in a week from writing this, you risk finding yourself at the same point or unable to track the progress you have made because there were no next steps to follow your to-do-list.

Therefore, it is extremely important when you set out towards a project or goal which could be in the area of your career, finance, relationships, tasks at work, to always break down a large goal, into tiny steps, that will lead you closer to the big picture. Some tasks underneath your goal might even require subtasks. This will enable you to track your progress and bring you closer to the final destination.

Have a new project to work on? Start creating your road map today, and break down every daunting and intimidating task into smaller and smaller tasks, pick a point, and most important, just START!

Making Life Possible is our ethos at paga, and it is what keeps us committed to our mission of providing inclusive financial services for all Nigerians. With over 15,000 agent outlets and 8 million+ customers, we are inspired by the stories of the community we are building and the people we are empowering by making life possible every single day.