Written by Coach JoyGenea with assistance from Notion AI. Image created by ChatGPT
What if I told you that the secret to achieving your biggest goals isn’t doing more, but doing less?
As unconventional leaders, you don’t set goals the way conventional people do. You see possibilities everywhere. You might want to improve everything at once. And that’s exactly what can limit growth and real change.
The Power of One Small Goal
Here’s what I’ve learned works: Pick one goal. Break it down with AI into twelve monthly milestones. Focus on just one small step each month.
It sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it? But that’s the point.
When we use AI as a thinking partner, we can take any ambitious goal and reverse-engineer it into manageable monthly actions. Even daily tasks. Want to build a new skill? Launch a side project? Transform a relationship? AI can help you map out what “just enough progress” looks like each month to get you there in twelve months.
Why One Thing at a Time Changes Everything
Our brains aren’t designed for massive, simultaneous change. They’re designed to build one habit, master one skill, create one new neural pathway at a time.
When you focus on one thing, you give yourself permission to actually finish something. To do it well. To integrate it into who you are becoming.
Small steps aren’t a compromise. They’re the strategy.
My Thirty-Year Journey to Simple
I was reviewing my annual notebook recently, the one I started over thirty years ago with my goals for each year. Looking back at those early pages was revealing.
The first few years? Long lists. Big, ambitious goals covering every area of my life. Such a different thinker thing to do. I was genuinely impressed with my younger self’s ability to identify all the places I wanted to improve.
But here’s the truth: there was no way I could have a job and make all those big life changes without support. It was overwhelming. Paralyzing, even.
Over the years, though, I’m thrilled to report that I achieved many of those goals and blew some of those goals up even bigger. But here’s what changed: I stopped filling out a full page of items. Now I write down five to ten items, and then I pick one as my main goal.
And I’m achieving so much more.
What My Clients Are Discovering
For the past five years, this is exactly what I’ve been teaching my clients. And they’re consistently amazed by their results.
When we make it simple. When you break down a twelve-month vision into one small action per month, magic happens. Not because the approach is complicated, but because it finally feels doable.
SIDE NOTE: Here is a word for 2026, Doable.
They stop feeling overwhelmed. They start finishing things. They build momentum that carries them forward.
Here is a really cool thing I can report, most of the time their goals are achieved ahead of schedule, and they make them bigger with the extra time.
Your Turn: What’s Your One Thing?
So, I’ll ask you: If you had twelve months to learn or accomplish one new thing, what would it be?
Not three things. Not a list. Just one.
Take that one thing and break it down. Ask yourself (or ask AI): What would I need to do each month to make this real by next December? What would I need to do each week? What would I need to do each day?
People are amazed at how doable something is when it is mapped out so small. They start to ask themselves, “Why would I not achieve this goal?”
Then start with month one.
That’s unconventional leadership, knowing that real change doesn’t come from doing everything at once. It comes from doing the right thing, one step at a time.
I want to hear your goals, share your first few steps.
You can do it!
Coach JoyGenea
Video transcription:
This week’s article on blog is really simple. If you had 12 months to learn one new thing, what would it be? Insights into unconventional leadership and change. If I told you that the secret to achieving your biggest goals isn’t doing more but doing less, you’d probably be surprised. As unconventional leaders, you don’t set goals the way conventional people do. Obviously, you’ve been achieving them in a very different manner, and I know it cause I watch you achieve them. I hear about it, get to engage in it. It’s amazing. You see possibilities everywhere. You might want to improve everything all at once, and as we know, that does not typically work, and that’s exactly what can limit your growth and real change. The power of one small goal. Here’s what I’ve Learned works. Pick one goal. Break it down, blessings to AI. Pick an AI, don’t care what it is. Say, this is, here’s the prompt. This is my goal for the next 12 months. Help me break this down monthly. Help then let me look at those. We’ll talk about it, and then I want you to break this down weekly. That is a new amazing thing that I highly recommend you use, a tool that should be accessed a lot more for achieving goals, and it will help make that happen. Why one thing at a time changes everything. Our brains aren’t designed for massive stimulus change, and simultaneously, this change like that. That’s why we get so uncomfortable and overwhelmed when so many things change all at once. But why in the world would we be able to go through an entire long list of 10 things we’re gonna change in the next year? We’re not. We’re gonna change a few small things that create incredible results. Aha, you’re looking at your list different now, aren’t you? Having that one thing that changes everything, or many things, it’s designed that way. Maybe it’s a habit, maybe it’s mastering one skill. Create one the goal, creating one new neuro pathway at a time. Trust me, that’s how they go. They don’t just all shoot. The goal is not to have major trauma. That’s how you build multiple pathways at once. You don’t want that. When you focus on one thing, you give yourself permission to actually finish something. There’s a great dopamine hit in there. I’m just telling you to do it well, to integrate it into you who you are becoming, so fabulous. Small steps aren’t compromised, they’re the strategy. Yay. So I have a little story that I talk about in this article. Years and years and years ago, actually um, this is actually a hand me down from my grandmother Celia, who I’m whose middle name I have, whose name I have as my middle name. Um, she gave me a photo album once and said, every year take a family photo and put it in here. I’ve not lived up to that. What I did do instead though was start a journal from that. I was inspired to start a journal, and I just use the same journal every year. It actually goes in my file cabinet in the middle of January um, and I in December, I pull it out and I start to write out my goals for the next year. It’s so interesting to look back at 30+ years of doing this and seeing my first like, the first years I did that, I had 25 goals for that year. Lovely. I can tell you, I accomplished all none of them. It was too overwhelming. I didn’t even know where to start. But those were my skills, and what I can tell you is at this point, I list out five to 10, and then I find that one that if I, if I, if I spend time and energy on this, it could possibly change four or five of the other ones on the list. That’s what I do. I try to get the greatest return for investment of time and energy on that. And I take, I now take that in with my clients, and I teach them. They come with lots of big goals. I want you to have big goals, and then we go, OK, what’s one thing in the next 12 months we could do that would shift a bunch of these things? Let’s look at this list. Let’s figure out what that is. That’s the big game changer. And, and I talk about in the article about a great word for the year. If you, I do a word for the year, and this word came up and I went, that might be my word, doable. And what I mean by that is make things doable. So let’s say you’re using AI to break your project down. If when you read it you’re like, I don’t know how I’m gonna get that done in a month, it’s too big, it’s not doable. So tell AI that and say, you know what, I’ll never get it done like that. We have to break this down differently if I’m gonna accomplish this. And you know what? It will, and it’ll, it’ll blow your mind, and you’ll love it. But so just a little hint, doable. Your big word when it comes to goal setting is make things doable. You’ll be, you’ll appreciate that. I mentioned this also. It’s your turn. You’ve listened to me, thank you. Go read the article. I break this down nicely, but I’m gonna tell you and ask you, what’s your one thing? Right now is the perfect time to say, you know what, a year, 12 months from now at the beginning of next year, it’d be really incredible if I’ve accomplished this, if I’ve done that, if I’ve Learned this, if I’ve grown from this, and this doesn’t feel so heavy. It actually feels like something doable. That, that is a beautiful thing to spend 10 minutes on today, to spend 30 minutes hanging out with AI and mapping out for yourself, and printing out and putting into your calendar. It’s that simple. Achieving small steps each week that lead to big outcomes. You’ll so thank yourself, and I get it. If you are a different thinker, if you’re an unconventional thinker, if you got some add sauce in there and some dyslexia stuff and some autism, like whatever that super sauce is of you, I get it. And I will tell you, incredible success is done when it is, when things are broken down into doable, measurable, achievable steps. So your word for this year for me and this article is doable, and my encouragement is leave a comment. Tell me, what is your one thing? I wanna hear it. I’m excited about it. I’m working on mine. I’m still in the, I’m down to three, and so I have a, I’m gonna have that done in time, haha. I’m JoyGenea, different thinker, unconventional leadership coach and International Neurodiversity Coach, champion for the outside of the box thinkers and beings in this beautiful world. I look forward to hearing about your super goal for the next 12 months. Bye now.