A few weeks ago, I decided to alter my diet a bit.

Quarantine has me stress-eating (and loading up on sugar, alcohol, and comfort foods.)

The result = feeling like garbage.

I’ve had too many stomach aches, groggy mornings, and low energy days.

Plus: This has a big negative impact on my work. If I can’t concentrate, my work suffers (and I’m generally less fun to be around.)

I knew I needed to implement some changes to start feeling better and being more productive. But I also knew that putting myself on some sort of DIET with strict rules wasn’t going to work.

So instead, I opted to make some small changes, like:

Starting the day with 32 oz of water with lemon.
Cutting down to ONE espresso drink per week, and opting for stevia instead of sugar in my coffee.
Having a fruit/veggie with every meal.
Dessert only twice a week, alcohol on the weekend (or skipping it altogether.)

These things are minor; they’re manageable. They’re not radical shifts like Whole 30 or going keto/paleo or completely eliminating things.

I think this is the secret to most things in life:

Taking small, realistic steps in the right direction.

My husband (and others) call it “tiny wins”, and it’s an idea that keeps popping up lately.

So often, people want to shoot for the moon: They want to implement a radical, life-changing shift, to accomplish a huge goal, or to achieve amazing results in a short window of time.

Can it be done? Yeah, sure.

But it’s much more realistic to implement small changes that are sustainable over time.

The same is true when you think about writing.

Say you want to get better at practicing writing (or you want to publish things you’ve written more often or you want to write a novel.)

You set big goals like:

“I’m going to write 5,000 words per day and get this book done in two weeks.”
“I’m going to publish 20 blog posts per month.”
“I’m going to send an email newsletter three times a week every week.”

Yes, you could crank this stuff out and hit these goals.

But will it be quality writing? Would you enjoy doing this work, or would it become a slog?

And how would you feel if you *didn’t* hit your goals? Probably bad. Maybe a little ashamed or angry at yourself (or even embarrassed if you shared your big goals with the world.)

Don’t fall into this trap.

Instead, set yourself up for tiny wins. Set goals that are attainable and that you can realistically be consistent with.

Over time those little wins stack up to big results, and while the progress may be slower, you’ll be far more apt to stick with your efforts.

There are even things that help with accountability. If you have a writing-focused goal, for example, you could use a tool like 750words.com. It’s a site that’s set up to help you write 750 words per day (totally do-able!) to establish a daily writing practice.