How to Think Big

Using Your Imagination

Schedule thinking time. When you’re ready to consider new projects or new approaches to current goals, set aside some time 90 minutes, two hours, whatever you can spare and use the entire time for thinking. Using the whole time to think helps you come up with approaches and strategies you might not have thought of before, because we tend to come up with one or two good ideas and think “that’s it! I’m ready!” Forcing yourself to think longer helps you go places your brain wouldn’t ordinarily go. Try to do your thinking in different settings. For example, you could go for a walk or visit a new coffee shop. Being in a different setting may help your brain to identify different possibilities than you would in your usual environment.

Entertain the impossible. It's easy to think “small” in your life, because it's easy to feel obligated to be practical or realistic about your dreams or goals. Thinking big requires you to move beyond thinking realistically and toward what might seem improbable or even impossible. For example, say you like to write. A realistic way of thinking about that might be to say that you want to write something every day. That’s a realistic goal and a realistic way of thinking about your love of writing. Entertaining the impossible means taking what you normally think you can do with your writing even further. Imagine what it would be like to see your book on a shelf at your favorite bookstore maybe even in a fancy display. Imagine seeing your name and your book’s title at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. This is the easiest way to think big. You can also do this by creating a vision board. Get a piece of poster board and use pictures and words from a magazine to represent your goals. Then, place the board somewhere you will see it often to help remind you of your goals.

Step outside your comfort zone. Thinking big means thinking in ways that are beyond what you normally do, so naturally you’ll have to step outside of your comfort zone. While you’re thinking about new projects or approaches, let yourself feel a little uncomfortable. If you’re not a little scared of what you’re coming up with, you’re not thinking big enough. For example, if you have a speech project for school, but want to think big about it, consider giving a style of speech you’re not usually comfortable with. Instead of reading directly from your paper, work from just a few bullet points and make it sound less formal. You could consider adding music or visuals to increase interest in your speech.

Setting Goals

Set attainable goals. Thinking big shouldn’t also mean fantasizing about the impossible. It’s tempting to set a wildly ambitious goal to try to inspire yourself to achieve something bigger, but doing so can be setting yourself up for failure. For example, if you’re thinking big about the kind of house you want to be able to afford one day, think bigger than you normally would maybe $25,000 to $50,000 more, or a couple hundred thousand. But don’t think so big that your plan is to be able to afford a home worth millions and millions of dollars. If one day you can, that’s great, but setting more attainable goals helps to prevent you from being disappointed and helps you feel good about what you can accomplish.

Break up your goal in steps. When you’re putting your big dreams into practice, recognize that although your end goal is big giving a speech, buying a house, publishing a bestselling book you have to take multiple, smaller steps to get there. The best way to achieve a big goal is therefore to break it up into smaller, more doable steps. Once you have your goal in mind, sit down and make a list of everything that you need to do for that goal to become a reality. This helps you to see it as more achievable and less overwhelming. For example, if your end goal is to write a best-selling book, an example of starting small might be researching the topics or genres that are becoming more popular (you don’t want to focus on stuff that’s popular now, because chances are things will change before your book is finished). If you’re writing a speech, starting small might just mean making a list of things you want to give a speech about. Once you have your goal broken down into steps, rearrange them in the order that you need to accomplish them.

Set deadlines for your goals. Once you’ve established what your big goals are, you’ll need to set deadlines for them. This makes you accountable and requires that work on accomplishing something everything day. It also helps to make all of the little steps you’ve created seem less overwhelming or more manageable. Keep in mind that you may need to readjust some of your deadlines, so it is important to be flexible. Don’t beat yourself up if some of your goals need to be readjusted.

Don’t do it alone. There’s no way you can accomplish big goals all on your own. Bestseller authors don’t publish, print, and distribute millions of copies of their books on their own. To determine what kind of people you need to help you achieve your goals, you’ll need to do some soul searching to determine your own weaknesses. Are you unorganized? Are you easily distracted? Find someone to help you out who is a color-coding organizational guru. Ask a friend who has laser focus to help keep you focused on what you need to do. Know when you'll need to use other people like publishers or an agent, for example to achieve your goals. Make sure you include contacting such people and whatever they need to do in your list of steps for achieving your goals.

Work consistently. All of the thinking and planning in the world isn’t going to matter if you don’t eventually take action to make your big goal a reality. You need to work toward your goals every single day. It doesn’t matter how slow you work or how long it takes to see results. If you work consistently toward a goal, eventually you’re going to get there. Creating a schedule for when in your day you work on each step toward your big goal can help you stay consistent. Set aside a certain amount of time each day at the same time each day to work. This prevents you from getting sidetracked by other things and guarantees that you stay consistent. Remember that taking action doesn’t necessarily mean accomplishing something really big every day. If you one of your steps for writing a best-selling book is getting an agent, don’t get down on yourself if all you contribute toward accomplishing that step in one day is researching potential agents. You have to take the first step to take the second and as long as you’re taking action, it doesn’t matter how big or small the action is.

Staying Motivated

Develop a support system. The most important part of accomplishing big goals is realizing that you need the help and support of people who care about you. Having a support system in place can help you stay motivated. Surrounding yourself with supportive people doesn’t mean surrounding yourself with people who will never critique your plans. You want people who will be honest with you and help you to improve your ideas. For example, if you’re working on that speech for school, and you’re committed to doing something different with it, ask a friend to listen to what you have and be honest about how they think it’s going. It might be painful to hear that they think what you’re trying just doesn’t work, but it will ultimately make you better. And getting a new perspective helps you stay motivated. You can also ask your support system to help keep you accountable. Share your deadlines or smaller step goals with them and ask them to check in with you. Be careful of becoming overly reliant on others, too. If you spend too much time getting other people’s opinions and following their suggestions, you’ll get really good at helping them think big, but won’t do so well thinking big for yourself. Criticism can be helpful sometimes, but it is important not to base your worth on what other people think. Relying too much on other people’s opinions can be self-limiting.

Celebrate small victories. It’s easy to feel like you’re not getting any closer to accomplishing your goals when you’re focused on the little, everyday things you need to do to get there. Celebrating small victories can help you feel like you are accomplishing something because you are! – and keep up your motivation. For example, if your goal is to have a best-selling book, you might celebrate the day you finish your research. Or the day you write a chapter. Or even when you get more than one page written in a sitting. You can celebrate in a lot of different ways, and they don’t have to be expensive. Reward yourself with a piece of chocolate when you check off one of your steps. Or enjoy having a night off and binge a new TV show on a Saturday night. It doesn’t really matter how you celebrate as long as you take a moment (or longer) to acknowledge that you’re making progress. Try placing a calendar on your wall and crossing off all of the goals you have accomplished, no matter how small.

Don’t be afraid of failure. If you focus too much on all the ways you might fail, or might fall short of your initial goal, you’ll never have the motivation to get started. Everyone fails from time to time, and it’s okay. Make a list of the ways that you might fail or fall short, and accept that they are distinct possibilities as you work to accomplish your big goals. If you do fail, remember that your failure doesn’t define you. Assess what led to your failure and start again. Keep in mind that success is not a straight line from point A to point B. There will be challenges and setbacks along the way. Learn about some of the challenges you may face and consider how you will handle them.