How to Put “Quick Wins” to Work in Your Life

Have you ever watched an episode of Blue’s Clues? Andy has recently started watching old episodes of it on Amazon Prime

. My teenage-self cringes at my parent-self saying it’s actually a pretty good show. At least in terms of helping young children learn skills like colors, shapes, patterns, and problem-solving.

If you’re not familiar with it, Blue’s Clues is a show about a dog named Blue and her friend Steve. “Blue’s Clues” is a game that they play to figure out what Blue wants to do. Blue leaves her paw prints on three items throughout the house and the audience “helps” Steve find these three clues. Then, once Steve finds all the clues, he sits in his thinking chair to figure out what the clues mean (with the audience’s “help” again, of course).

Well, as I was watching the show with Andy I began to notice a pattern. It takes a couple of minutes for Steve and Blue to set up the show. They establish the question they’re trying to answer with their game of “Blue’s Clues” then do an intro song and dance. After that though, the first clue is always in the next scene. Which means that it shows up in about 10–15 seconds after they start playing. The rest of the clues take their time in coming, but the first clue always comes very quickly.

This is brilliant on the part of the show’s creators! By revealing the first clue early they create a quick win for the audience. It makes the audience feel good. It feels like they’re making great progress, and piques their curiosity for what the rest of the clues may be. This combination keeps the audience engaged with the show through all the silly activities Steve gets caught up in (which, coincidentally, is where the learning happens). It’s a simple little trick, but it’s one that we can use to make lasting changes stick in our own lives.

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The idea of quick wins isn’t something that came to me out of the blue (pun intended). It’s actually something that’s established as an effective marketing tactic. The reality is that marketer’s use quick wins to get your attention all the time. Whether it’s diet pills, or how to ______ in five minutes, or even 10% off coupons. All of these offer quick wins that marketers use to engage an audience and turn them into customers. Think of this, how often have you thought that ink cartridges cost almost as much as a new printer? The printer offers a quick win. Considering the fact that it’s a sophisticated piece of technology it’s very affordable. Once the initial ink cartridges run out, however, the costs seem to start climbing.

You can use the same tactics as TV show producers and marketers to help “trick” yourself into making more consistent progress toward your goals. All you have to do is set yourself up for a quick win.

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Often when we set goals, we look only toward the end, to when we’ve accomplished the goal. We picture the six pack or the written book. The good grade or the happy, healthy, family. These mental images can be inspiring, and they should be! But if the end goal is too far off we can get discouraged along the way, even if we’re making good progress.

This is where a quick win can make all the difference.

When we set ourselves up for a quick win along the way to our goal it gives us a sense of momentum and progress. It helps us to feel more positive about our ability to accomplish the end goal. And, it’s incredibly easy to do.

To set yourself up for a quick win all you have to do is set a micro-goal for yourself along the way to your larger goal. This micro goal should have the following characteristics:

1. It should be something that takes action and initiative on your part. “If you’re doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” Something that you’re already doing or that comes naturally to you isn’t a good candidate for a quick win. The object is to make a change that propels you toward your goal. If your quick win doesn’t require any effort on your part it may not be effective.
2. It should be something that gives you a sense of accomplishment and progress. Your quick win should provide some sense of measurable progress toward your bigger goal. It should be something that you can feel proud of yourself for having accomplished.
3. It should also be something that propels you toward your goal. Your quick win should be something that actually progresses toward your larger goal. You also want it to be something that builds momentum to something more significant if possible.
4. It should be easy. The temptation after reading all of the above characteristics is to set the bar really high in your quick win. But that undermines the main idea that a quick win should be easy. In your quick wins you need to find that sweet spot in the tension between what is easy and what takes initiative, gives a sense of accomplishment, and propels you toward your goal.

These “quick wins” will be different for each goal. They have to be in order to be relevant to those goals. Here are some examples of what these could look like:

Big Goal: Lose 50 pounds.
Quick Win: Do 5 minutes of light exercise every morning for a week.

Big Goal: Write a book.
Quick Win: Have a 15 minute brainstorming session on what you could write about. (See this great video for a fun and effective approach)

Big Goal: Spend more quality time with my spouse.
Quick win: Practice the 5 for 5 rule* (be within 5 feet of your spouse for at least 5 minutes as soon as you’re both home for the day) every evening for a week. *I wish I could take credit for this or point you to where I heard about it. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten.

You probably get the idea. Each of these examples isn’t extraordinarily difficult, but they do require you to begin taking action. Doing them doesn’t take a whole lot of time, so they can easily be fit into a busy schedule. Each one builds toward the big goal they relate to.

Each one of the examples also lays the groundwork for growth and the next best step:

If you’re trying to lose weight you can increase the number of minutes or intensity of your excercise, or you can add a few minutes of stretching to the end.

If you’re trying to write a book you can take the concepts from your brainstorm and organize them into an outline, or even just categorize them into chapters.

If you’re trying to spend more quality time with your spouse then after a week of intentionally being close (at least physically) you’ve hopefully noticed some ways that you can help, serve, or connect more deeply.

Before you move on to your next thing from reading this blog post think about your current big aspirations that seem far away and out of reach. Then, I want you to think about what your quick win action would be that would start propelling you toward that goal.

Let me know in the comments what your quick win action is going to be.