Daily Strategies for consistent goal achievement and sustained motivation
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” This quote by Mario Andretti is powerful and undeniably motivational. However, as we’ve all experienced with New Year’s resolutions, motivation can disappear faster than socks on laundry day. This brings up a critical question: How can we make it easier for ourselves to stay consistent and committed on a daily basis to achieve our goals?
Commitment is a pivotal force that shapes the trajectory of our personal and professional endeavors. Making decisions and committing oneself fully to any goal can be daunting, especially when the outcome is uncertain. You may start doubting your abilities, constantly procrastinating, and lowering your expectations. In a world full of distractions and instant gratification, staying consistent and focused on long-term goals is even more challenging.
Considering that we are all human and want to make it easier for ourselves, we can implement the following strategies, which have worked well for me in recent years:
1. Rephrasing “failing” to “repositioning”:
It might seem trivial to think that simply rephrasing a word can impact your life trajectory, but hear me out. Whenever we fall short of a goal or feel like we've failed, we tend to blame ourselves or our circumstances. Instead of dwelling on your failures, think of your situation as a perfect chance to reposition yourself. Your ego is already hurt, and you’ve taken the blame for your failure, so use this opportunity to reinvent yourself and transform your experiences into wisdom. The goal is to take failure out of the equation and start judging your actions instead of your results. The results don’t matter; they will eventually show up as long as you show up for yourself and try to progress daily. While we can’t completely switch off our emotions and may need a few minutes of despair and discomfort before moving on from adversity, correlating failure with something positive within our self-talk can preserve our energy and keep us on track.
2. Asking yourself, “What is the smallest task I can complete today to work towards my goal?”
Striving for something big takes great courage, persistence, and belief in yourself. Thinking of all the things that need to work out and the hours of work required to achieve your goal can feel overwhelming. Breaking down your big, scary objective into very simple tasks will multiply your odds of success enormously. For example, if you need to read a 50-page paper for school by the next day, committing to the full 50 pages can be agonizing. Instead, make a deal with yourself to read 10 pages before getting up for a well-deserved coffee. This triggers our reward system, known as the mesocorticolimbic circuit. By incentivizing tasks, we activate neural structures, allowing us to complete our work with more motivation, focus, and intensity. Achieving these small milestones compounds our successes and builds confidence and trust in ourselves to complete our tasks with less conflict.
3. Embrace the process
The world’s most successful individuals and high performers often confirm that getting things is more fun than having things. While it sounds cliché, it brings things into perspective in a great way. We are on this planet for the sheer experience. Everything we accomplish is, in fact, meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe. The world will keep spinning, the birds will keep chirping, and the years will keep passing no matter what. Ultimately, it’s the experiences we make, the people we meet, the places we visit, and the stories we tell our grandkids one day that truly matter. So embracing the experience, even when it sucks, helps us stay focused on the present, making us more productive, less worried, and reducing the pressure on ourrselves to achieve and be successful.
By implementing these strategies, I have been able to focus on what matters to me, maintain consistency in my work, and ultimately achieve my goals. I feel incredibly fortunate to live my passion and snowboard for a living, recognizing that not everyone has the opportunity to do what they love every day. However, I firmly believe that anyone who works hard, maintains self-belief, and keeps going regardless of the outcome can reach their full potential. It might take longer than expected, but once you relieve the pressure from yourself and prioritize action instead of results, there is absolutely nothing that can stop you.
