Usually when people set goals, they think about setting a long-term goal, such as “I want to make a million dollars” or “I want to launch a new company this year” then they break those goals into short-term goals. There’s nothing wrong with this strategy. It keeps you focused on the long-term and it ensures that your short-term goals are aligned with your long-term goals.

However, when it comes time to getting things done, that’s where these types of goals are insufficient. We have our long-term and short-term goals in place, but we still procrastinate. But why?

The reason is because short-term goals are not the same as “Immediate goals.” A short-term goal can be completed in a day, but an immediate goal is one that can be completed right this moment. It ignores everything that comes after it. It’s these types of goals that research has shown has the biggest impact on whether or not you get off the sofa and take action.

Take cleaning the house as an example. We’ve all let rooms in our house become a disaster area from time to time. The problem got so big that we weren’t sure where to start. It’s not that we weren’t motivated to clean. The problem isn’t laziness, the problem is the all-important question, ‘Where do I start?” This single question cuts through the feeling of being overwhelmed. It doesn’t matter how many steps are required to clean your office or finish a project… the only thing that matters is the step right in front of you.

This is as true for creative projects as it is for cleaning the house. Creativity, by its very nature, is a messy process filled with ambiguity. When you’re creating, you’re literally creating something the world hasn’t seen before. Your long-term goals often change as the project evolves. Your short-term goals might turn out to be unimportant or even counter-productive. Good creativity is messy and ambiguous. But we can stay motivated each day by keeping in mind the step that is directly in front of us.

When things get messy, as they undoubtedly will, we can reset our immediate goal to align with the situation. Not the situation for this week or even for today. The situation for this very moment that you’re right now.