Small Goals = Big Success

Reach for the stars... Slowly

Cosmo’s hottest workout trends

The shocking sugar-coated truth

Bust out of your exercise rut

- Krissy Brady

Going after big, new goals (like, say, running a marathon, quitting junk food or learning to speak Spanish) may be desirable… but it’s also daunting and you’re more likely to give up. Your solve: micro-goals. Setting supersmall, stupidly achievable objectives is the key to rocking your 2018 life targets. Quickly making progress, even if it’s in baby steps, is more motivating than achieving something major, according to a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

BIG FAIL

Be asleep by 10pm every night.

SMALL WIN

Get up at roughly the same time every day.

Let’s be real: sleep is everything. But not everyone’s internal body clock allows them to conk out at 10pm on the dot, says sleep specialist Michael Breus, author of The Power of When. If your natural circadian rhythm doesn’t align with a certain strict bedtime, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Going hard and forcing yourself won’t help.