I was recently talking to a friend and I really appreciate what he told me.
He was explaining how he was frustrated with himself. He had some goals that he started the new year with and wasn’t on track.
I appreciate how brutally honest he was. Most people don’t acknowledge the reality so I was impressed by that.
After he explained a bit about what was going on, he said, “What it comes down to is I have a hard time staying motivated and doing what I know I need to do when the result is so far away.”
Have you ever felt that way? I know I have.
My friend was looking for advice so I wanted to share some of what I discussed with him.
There isn’t necessarily an easy fix to this but hopefully you’ll find this useful.
Vision – What keeps people going when things get tough is always their vision. “Vision” is simply the picture of how things can be in the future. It doesn’t seem worth it when we only look at the short-term but once we look at the bigger picture and keep that at the center, our perspective changes.
Make it easier to do or harder to do – Ultimately, our outcome will be a result of our habits. Aristotle said, “….success is a habit.” We have to make the thing we want to do as easy as possible. On the flip side, we need to make the thing we don’t want to do as hard as possible. I had one client who was staying up too late looking at her phone so she made it harder to do. She took her phone a few hours before bed and locked it in a safe downstairs. She knew that she would be much less likely to look at her phone if it required all that work to get it.
Embrace the process – This is related to the point above but it has more to do with how we view the journey. We could work out for weeks and still not see the scale move. The key is seeing the value of going through the process. It’s not necessarily about the result but who you become in the process. I truly believe that you become a better person just by challenging your-self physically. All of the other benefits would be in addition to that.
Let me know which of the 3 points resonated with you the most.