Owain Service

• Create an actionable plan

It’s a curious and wonderful thing about the human condition that we are often a mystery to ourselves

trengthening your social relationships;

getting healthy and active;

learning something new;

being more curious; and

giving to others.

Think Small is not a checklist.

We usually assume that when we set ourselves a goal we will probably pursue it with focus and attention, drawing heavily on our slower, reflective system.

Rule 2: Focus on a single goal and set a clear target and deadline

it is helpful to have a single, specific saving goal in mind if you want to maximize the amount of cash that you are able to set aside. For example, as you have children, this might be to focus on saving to help pay for their education.

One way in which you might want to choose your goal is to reflect on the five factors associated with improvements in wellbeing and to give each of your objectives a score out of ten based on the extent to which achieving that goal – whether it’s volunteering, running a marathon, getting a new job, spending more time with the kids, improving the performance of your team at work, or losing weight – might improve your wellbeing and that of others. We also want you to

e realistic about what you might be capable of achieving. But rather than thinking about your chances of success, we want you to give a score out of ten for how passionate and interested you are in each of these goals. This should help you to ensure that you focus on something that will motivate you to persist and persevere in the longer term, even when the going gets tough

ow that you’ve got a single, headline goal, you will need to start being clear about what success looks like. This means setting yourself a clear target. Countless studies have shown, in areas as diverse as weight loss, workplace productivity, quitting smoking, voting in elections and donating blood, that setting yourself a clear target makes it much more likely that you’ll achieve your aims than if you just try to ‘do your best’.2