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“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” Not sure where I heard this quote, but it’s stuck with me over the years.

Chances are, you’ve heard about the importance of setting goals. Pinpointing goals help ensure you get where you want to go. The problem is people often set rather lofty goals.

How often have we turned the calendar on January 1 and said: I’m going to exercise every day of the week for an hour. For someone who is used to exercising routinely, setting this expectation may be just fine. But for many of us, setting such high expectations is more a recipe for failure than success.

This is why setting mini-goals is so important. For example: I’m going to exercise for ten minutes five times a week. Once you get in the habit of this fulfilling this mini goal, increasing it by ten minutes will be easier since you have already begun forming the habit of exercise. Besides, it's "water the bamboo," not "drown the bamboo."

The same notion holds true in your job. While increasing sales by 20% within a calendar year may be your end-game, breaking up this overarching goal into realistic, mini-milestones – a 5% increase of prospects to the pipeline within the first month – will help keep you moving in the right direction, stay laser focused on what needs to be done, and motivated to reach your ultimate objective.