Aiming small
Aim small, miss small.
First heard that in American Sniper, Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic-free ode to an American icon.
Context is sniper training, and the instructor’s telling Chris Kyle and his fellow trainees to “aim small, miss small”.
The idea is that the smaller the target, the smaller the margin of error if you miss.
Aiming for a shirt button?
Good chance you still hit the shirt.
And where bullets are involved, that’s probably going to get the job done.
There are counter arguments for this, valid ones, and it’s not a recipe for success at scale, I’d agree.
Except I keep aiming big, and missing even bigger.
Because I didn’t hit the smaller targets first.
Couldn’t see them, because the big target, the main goal, got in the way.
And when I aim big, and miss bigger?
I just want to give up.
And I never really go anywhere.
So I’m aiming small.
Breaking that bigger target down into something manageable.
Small enough that if I miss it doesn’t set me back.
Some days that’s pretty small.
Then the days add up.
Lots of smalls make a big.
But I have to hit the smalls, first.