I get overwhelmed by a lot of “major life change” plans. And I get distracted and forget that I’m making “major life changes” a lot. This has happened with diets and exercise plans and investing strategies and a bunch of other things that I plan to change forever and just wind up going back to my original default.

I’ve found that short-term plans help me. I’ve found that if I want to make a change, I only set it for a month. I am really good at saying “for the month of October I’m not eating desserts” and then I get all the leftover Halloween candy I want.

I work best when I know it’s a limited period that I’m doing this thing for. Because then it becomes a project. It’s a program or a task, it’s not who I am now. It’s hard to change who we are. It’s hard to change our natural state. But we can do things. We can accomplish goals. So if we set goals that are limited in duration, we can stick it out when things get hard. I did a sober October challenge this year. I just didn’t drink for 31 days. Not because I felt any particular way about my drinking habits, just because it’s more calories than I need and I wanted to see if I felt any different or my body worked any different if I abstained for a month. I noted some differences, I noted some weight loss and sure did have a glass of wine a week or so later. By choice, not by habit. That’s the crucial piece.

I like this kind of challenge – it’s easiest for me to do it through activity or diet methods, but it can work for financial components or efficiency/organization as well. This month I’ve set myself a task to do at least 10,000 steps a day. I’ve been good at that in the past, but I haven’t been particularly active in the last few months and I’m feeling it in my anxiety and levels of focus.

Setting an intentional goal that isn’t a forever goal makes it more achievable. Knowing that I can push for this level of focus for a short term helps me make it a habit, but if it’s an incredibly inconvenient habit in my life, I won’t build resentment about it. I’ll suck it up for a few more weeks and then it’ll be over. The momentum I build psychologically is the biggest benefit.

When I’ve set myself to do something like that and I actually make it the month, there’s no telling what I can accomplish! Whereas when I set myself a goal to lose twenty pounds, it’s easy to get disheartened when I have a weekend filled with delicious food and lose progress. Setting a limited goal – one thing limited in time – makes a big difference.

Those small, incremental steps build into bigger things. I took my month off of sugar, and now I’m craving less sugar. I have started my 10k steps and I’m realizing it’s not a huge challenge for me to get 10,000 steps in my day as long as I actually am up and about and not just sitting watching tv – a thing I don’t really need to be doing so much anyway.

Small intentional changes lead to more permanent habits. Focus on the short term and then give yourself a pass to go right back to it if you want. No shame, no failure, not guilt. Small timeouts to see what it does to your body and mind. Then you decide if you want to set other small attainable goals.

Build up small successes. It’ll keep you going and build you up in the process.