In August, my sister, Alison, and I hiked the northern half of the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB). For five days, our routine was remarkably consistent: get up, put on our hiking boots, shoulder our packs, and climb. And climb.

Most days involved more than 3,000 feet of elevation gain, followed by an equally daunting descent. Before the trip, we wondered whether we could actually do it. We are both over 60, and looking at the elevation profiles before we left was enough to make us question the wisdom of the entire undertaking. But we did it. The surprising part was how.

There was no burst of superhuman effort. No moment when we suddenly became stronger hikers. Instead, we learned to take slow, consistent steps. One after another. When we got tired, we stopped. We drank some water, ate a handful of trail mix, looked around, and started again. Then we repeated the process.

That simple rhythm carried us over every mountain pass. It struck me along the way that accomplishing a difficult organizational goal works much the same way.

Setting an ambitious goal is often the easy part. Organizations create strategic plans, announce major initiatives, establish revenue targets, launch transformation efforts, or decide to change a long-standing way of working. Then comes the hard part: Tuesday morning. The excitement of the announcement is gone, but hundreds of small actions still need to happen.

Progress toward an important goal is rarely dramatic. It comes from people doing the next useful thing, and then doing another one. A manager has the difficult conversation. An engineer solves one part of the technical problem. Someone follows up with a client. A team reviews the data again. A leader makes another decision. One step at a time.

There were moments on the TMB when the top of the mountain seemed impossibly far away. Looking too far ahead could actually be discouraging. So we learned to concentrate on the section of trail directly in front of us. Leaders sometimes need to do the same thing.

Keep the destination visible, certainly. People need to understand where they are going and why it matters. But then help them identify the next achievable step. And remember that rest is part of progress. We stopped when we needed to. We acknowledged how far we had come. Then we recommitted and continued. Big goals rarely require heroic effort every day. More often, they require something less glamorous and more powerful: persistence. Remember the goal. Take the next step. Pause when necessary. Then take another. Over time, those ordinary steps can carry you someplace that once seemed impossibly far away.