How to Hack Any Overwhelming Goal

What’s Really Stopping You

We all have goals. For some of us certain ones may have haunted us for years. Why is it so hard to achieve some goals? I think lack of progress is often due to a paralysis, if you will, due to a feeling of “overwhelm” by the task at hand. A lot of my clients will default to calling themselves “lazy.” That’s not a word that I use. What does “lazy” really even mean? When I dig deeper about why a client is not acting on something they claim is a value or goal of theirs, I often discover that it’s due to intense perfectionism/fear by the grand scope of the task. This immobilizes our efforts instantly. It’s so natural and easy for a goal to feel insurmountable to even begin.

The Hack

So what then is the solution? Breaking things down into very tiny, doable steps, and placing what I call “containers” around each step. Containers are anything that can make a task feel more doable. For example, I may give a client homework to process an intense feeling they’ve been avoiding. We may agree together to place a container on that exercise to 15 minutes at first. Knowing the exercise has a definitive start and end time is considered a container because it contains the person’s vulnerability; it places a parameter around the “scary thing.”

The How

This tool of breaking down a large goal into many smaller, progressive, and contained goals IS the path to achieving what you thought was unachievable. What does this look like in practice? Baby steps. It looks like starting with something we know you can do this week, but that is slightly outside your window of tolerance. We do that step until you feel it’s been mastered. Now we can move onto the next step, so on and so forth.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

This hack may seem too simple, but I promise its efficacy. Sometimes clients feel they need the help, support, and structure that a therapist can provide to guide them through these steps. That’s what I’m here for: to provide that structure from week to week, to share my knowledge and experience to set goals with you that make sense, and the support and accountability you need to keep you going when you’d normally “fall off.”

Let’s Begin!