Success takes time.
It’s a long term undertaking. It can take months, years, or decades, before you achieve your goals.
While it’s important to take this long view when you’re setting your goals, it’s not very useful on a day to day basis. The reality is that those goals that take years to accomplish are the summation of your actions every single day.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.Lao Tzu
No matter how big we dream or what we hope to achieve, it takes practice, hard work, and perseverance every single day. We need to always be moving forward, inching towards our dreams.
Figuring out how to approach long term goals can be overwhelming, but if we scale back and think smaller, there’s a much clearer path to success. We need to take things one day at a time and make sure every day is successful in helping us reach our goals. We need to win the day.
In essence, winning the day is exactly what it sounds like. It is the idea that you achieve what you set out to for the day and those achievements are bringing you closer to your goals. It makes perfect sense, so how do we do it?
I believe we can master the method of winning the day in three simple steps: plan, execute, and review.
1. Plan
The first step is to plan. Look at your long term goals and break them down into smaller and smaller chunks until they are more manageable. These essentially become the tasks that you tackle on a daily basis. Pick the first chunk and set it as your goal for the day.
This can look like a lot of things. Perhaps it is creating an outline for a book or talking to people about a new idea or building a wireframe for a prototype or taking the first steps towards a healthier lifestyle.
The actual step is inconsequential as long as it is bringing you a little closer to your long term goal.
2. Execute
Planning is easy. It’s full of wonder and imagination and hope. Execution is gritty and difficult and challenging. Planning to take that next step is nothing if you don’t actually take it.
Your goal should simply be to accomplish what you planned for the day. This is not always possible, for any number of reasons, but you should be making the effort to essentially win the day.
The best part is that every day is another opportunity to do so and once you build some momentum, things will get easier.
3. Review
This is the part that most of us skip. We don’t take the time to review how our day went and what we truly accomplished. This is important because it shows us how to adjust our approach and ensure that the same mistakes we made today are not made tomorrow.
This can be done with a series of questions: Did I win the day? Did I try to do too much? Or not enough? Is this sustainable? Do I need to change my strategy or routine?
What worked today may not work tomorrow, so we have to be flexible in how we approach our daily goals. As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” We need to reflect on our days if we want to improve and get closer to our goals.
Do It Again: After your review, take what you learned and start the process over tomorrow.
Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.Robert Collier
It may not seem like much, but winning the day is what turns into your big wins down the line. Putting some time into how you do so, can make all the difference.
Furthermore, this approach isn’t strictly for careers or business, but can be used for relationships, growth, mindfulness, health, and more.
These simple steps can make your dreams of grandeur that much more attainable.