Decades ago, on a cold winter Sunday, I was in my “jammy clothes” reading Parade Magazine. This was back in the day when people read print newspapers. I read about a mother and son who had visited all thirty Major League Baseball stadiums.

Our son Jeffrey was about 8 years old and he loved baseball. He was in the room while I was reading. Not giving it a lot of thought, I said, “Jeffrey, would you like to go to all the major league stadiums?” His eyes were aglow and his face answered before words came out of his mouth.

Thus, a dream and a goal were realized in that moment. We agreed that we would go to all the Major League Baseball stadiums before he finished high school. I didn’t think too seriously about this goal since I figured that Jeffrey would either outgrow baseball (or me!) before we visited all thirty.

We started visiting stadiums at a reasonable pace and we found it to be a great mother and son bonding experience. It was so much fun! As Jeffrey was entering his last years of high school it became clear that we could not visit all of the stadiums before he graduated and left for college, so we extended the goal to be “as long as it takes.”

Two decades later, we have visited all thirty stadiums and we are on a very slow schedule to repeat them all during my lifetime. There are several parts of this goal that I believe are relevant to all goals.

• You don’t have to plan a goal for it to be a good one. You could hear yourself saying something like, “I wonder if we could double our exports,” and then realize you have a goal.

• You don’t have to plan out every aspect of the goal. Starting small and then adding on will work. Don’t try to lose 40 pounds. Try to eat lower calorie and healthier foods for this week and then add on, or in this example, take off a little each week.

• While adding an endpoint or deadline is helpful to get you started, if you miss it, you have still achieved a great deal. If you are trying to save $10,000 by year end and you only actually save $8,000, be thrilled! You are still $8,000 richer than last year.

What are some goals that you have considered in the past that just seemed too big to be achieved? Focus on the first step, and see where that takes you!