Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): Un truco útil es dividir la meta grande en pasos pequeños y avanzar uno por uno. - A useful trick is to divide the big goal into small steps and advance one by one.

Putting an adjective before the noun is possible but usually adds a more subjective, emotional, or stylistic nuance (poetic, emphatic, etc.).
So un útil truco would sound unusual and overly formal or literary, while un truco útil is the standard, natural order.

Does truco mean a “trick” (like cheating) or more like a helpful “tip”?

Truco can mean both, depending on context:

Neutral / positive: a technique or hack that makes something easier.
- Un truco útil para aprender vocabulario. = A useful trick/tip to learn vocabulary.
Negative: something dishonest, a trick to cheat or deceive.
- Hizo un truco para ganar. = He pulled a trick to win (cheated).

In your sentence, with útil and about reaching goals, it clearly means a helpful tip/technique, not cheating. Another very common neutral word is consejo (piece of advice).

Why is it un truco útil and not una truco útil?

Because truco is a masculine noun, so it uses the masculine article un.

Masculine singular: un truco útil
Feminine singular: una meta grande

In most cases, nouns ending in -o (like truco) are masculine, and those ending in -a (like meta) are feminine, so the article and adjectives have to match that gender.

What’s the difference between meta and objetivo?

Both meta and objetivo can mean goal or objective, and in this sentence they are basically interchangeable:

meta – very commonly used for personal goals, sports goals, life goals.
objetivo – also common; sometimes feels a bit more formal or technical (business, planning), but in everyday speech they overlap a lot.

So you could also say dividir el objetivo grande en pasos pequeños and it would be understood the same way.

Why is it la meta grande and not la gran meta? Is there a difference?

Both are correct, but the nuance changes:

la meta grande focuses more literally on the size or difficulty: the big goal.
la gran meta (using gran before the noun) often adds an emotional or qualitative sense: the great goal, the major / very important goal.

So la meta grande sounds more neutral and concrete. La gran meta sounds more elevated or dramatic, like a life-defining goal.

Why are dividir and avanzar in the infinitive after es?

Spanish uses the infinitive as a noun-like form to talk about actions in general. A very common pattern is:

Lo mejor es descansar. = The best thing is to rest.
Mi trabajo es enseñar. = My job is to teach.

Here, Un truco útil es dividir… y avanzar… means A useful trick is (to) divide… and (to) move forward…
Using a conjugated form (es divides, es avanzas) would be incorrect; you need the infinitive forms dividir and avanzar.

Why is the preposition en used in dividir la meta grande en pasos pequeños?

With the idea of splitting something into parts, Spanish typically uses dividir en:

dividir el texto en párrafos – divide the text into paragraphs
dividir el pastel en ocho porciones – divide the cake into eight pieces

So dividir la meta grande en pasos pequeños literally means divide the big goal into small steps.
You’ll also see dividir entre in math or when dividing among people: dividir el dinero entre tres personas.

Why is it pasos pequeños instead of pequeños pasos?

Both orders are grammatically correct, but they feel slightly different:

pasos pequeños (noun + adjective) – the neutral, most common order; simply describes the steps as small.
pequeños pasos (adjective + noun) – can sound a bit more emphatic or stylistic, like little steps with a bit more focus on the “smallness”.

In everyday speech, pasos pequeños is the more natural, default option here.

Why is there no article before pasos pequeños? Why not en unos pasos pequeños?

In Spanish, when talking about things in a general, indefinite, plural way, you often omit the article:

Necesitamos ideas nuevas. – We need new ideas.
Compró libros interesantes. – He bought interesting books.

Similarly, en pasos pequeños means in small steps in a general sense.
Adding unos (en unos pasos pequeños) would suggest in some small steps or in a few small steps, which sounds more limited and specific. The original sentence wants to speak generally, so it drops the article.

What does uno por uno literally mean, and does it change with gender?

Uno por uno literally means one by one. It’s a fixed expression used for doing things step by step, individually:

Entraron uno por uno. – They went in one by one.

For feminine or plural references, you can change it:

una por una (feminine) – e.g. with personas: Las entrevistamos una por una.
uno a uno is another very common variant, especially in sports: Ganamos uno a uno (one by one, individually).

In your sentence, the idea is generic (not tied to a specific noun’s gender), so uno por uno is perfect.

Where is “your” in this sentence? Why isn’t it tu meta grande?

Spanish often omits possessive adjectives when the owner is obvious or when speaking generically.

The sentence describes a general strategy, not one specific person’s goal, so Spanish stays neutral with la meta grande: the big goal (in general).

If you wanted to make it explicitly personal, you could say:

Un truco útil es dividir tu meta grande en pasos pequeños… – A useful trick is to divide your big goal into small steps…

Why does útil have an accent mark?

Spanish stress rules say:

Words ending in a vowel, n, or s are normally stressed on the second-to-last syllable.
útil ends in -l, so by default it should be stressed on the last syllable: utiL.
But we actually pronounce it Ú-til (stress on the first syllable), so an accent mark is required to show this irregular stress.

That’s why it’s written útil, not util.