Two weeks ago, I celebrated my twenty sixth Birthday, entering into my late twenties…eeek. High school Kelsey would have told you that at 26 I would be married, have a kid, have a house and be in a career that I love. It’s funny how different I am at twenty six then my eighteen year old self thought I would be. This got me thinking of setting impossible goals and how to keep moving in the right direction to get closer to your dream.

It’s easy for us to get stagnant in our day to day life and get comfortable with where we are at. As soon as you settle for where you are, as soon as you accept being content, you lose sight of your long-term goals. The only way to ensure constant movement is to have some direction and plan in life. If you’re like me you are probably thinking wait I don’t even know what my plan is after work or what I will eat for dinner let alone deciding a direction for my life.

So my advice to myself at 26 is try to do something you never thought you could. Take a leap, put yourself out there. You may fail, but the possibility of succeeding at something you thought was out of your reach is definitely worth that risk.

Setting impossible goals. I decided last year that I would run a mini marathon. That’s a 13.1 mile run. When I started training I could barely run two miles. Six months 2 hours and 10 minutes later I crossed the finish line. This small goal gave me a huge self-confidence boost and made all of my crazy insane goals no longer seem so out of reach. “People with goals succeed because they know where they are going”

Typically, impossible goals take time to achieve; you will not see change overnight. If you don’t expect to immediately be able to run 13 miles, get a promotion or change your career path, then you aren’t immediately disappointed you are willing to wait for the change to happen.

Along those lines you can’t just sit back and wait for things to happen, you have to chase it. Take on new projects, add more responsibilities, go for a jog, etc. Start by making little changes and before you know it, you can look back and see just how far you’ve come and how much closer you are to your dream.