Tractable Goals

High-level goals like “make new friends” often seem intractable. It’s much, much easier to start with something small, so small that it might even seem trivial. In the case of making friends, this might mean initiating a single conversation everyday that you otherwise wouldn’t initiate. Every individual experience might not seem like a big step, but in the aggregate this leads to huge progress.

The same idea holds in many other cases: getting in shape, pursuing a career, self-improvement, etc. Often there is also a threshold of minimum progress. For example, the first 20 social interactions might not seem fruitful, but perhaps on the 21st you’ll really click with someone or even just realize you have become a lot more confident. On the other hand, after just 10 interactions it may seem like no progress is being made. But once you cross that arbitrary threshold and observe real progress, you realize every small step was essential.