There are days when everything is clear to me. It starts in the morning, in the shower, when the water pours down on my head and I feel completely at one with myself. The most wonderful ideas come to me in the shower, and so does clarity. It’s as if everything else is simply being washed away. Do you know that feeling too?
And then there are days when everything just slips away. First, it’s time, then motivation, then goals. I surf the internet or tidy something up, like my kitchen. I move to another room and remember something else I wanted to do. While I’m doing that, other things come to mind. They turn into ideas that I quickly decide to act on as well. And so one small, unimportant task leads to the next, and before I know it, the day is over. It feels as though I haven’t accomplished anything. I could make myself feel better about the day by saying, “Well, I got a lot done.” But none of it brought me closer to my goals. Instead, I was holding myself back. How do you keep yourself from reaching your goals?
Are you perhaps also focused on perfection? Do you want to show your projects only when everything is perfect? Does the thought that you’re not an expert hold you back? That others might see you as an impostor? This is closely connected to the thought: I am not enough. I’m very surprised by how many of us carry this thought around with us. Far more than I imagined. I used to think I was the only one who wasn’t enough. Everyone else was.
Both assumptions are wrong. We, you and I, are enough!
Being enough is something we are born with. Now it’s up to us to learn what we can do to maintain our focus and achieve the goals we have set for ourselves.
Recently, I heard Dean Graziosi say, “Turn your ship towards the rough seas.” What he means is that it’s important not to get caught up in small, unimportant tasks, but to focus on the real goal. He describes the journey towards it as rough seas. We don’t know what awaits us, but we imagine it might be uncomfortable. That’s the moment when our brain wants to send us back to the couch. After all, what would you want to do out on the rough seas?
Beyond the rough seas, beyond the adventures that accompany us on the ocean, the sun is shining and the water is sparkling beautifully. Do you have a clear picture of what your goals look like?
Our brain works like an autopilot when we feed it the right values. It helps to write down our goals, with a pen on paper. SMART goals that are clearly defined work best for our autopilot. We need to be specific. If our coordinates are even slightly off, we can end up incredibly far away from our goals.
In his book The Psychology of Winning, Dr. Denis Waitley writes that we should be clear about where our destination lies, how long it will take to get there, why we want to go there, what we want to experience along the way, and with whom. He recommends setting a series of small goals: daily, weekly, monthly and every six months. It’s also important to choose easy goals that lead towards the bigger picture. Every time we achieve a goal, we train ourselves to want to keep achieving our goals. Achieving goals feels good!
To counteract moments of weakness, moments when I might tidy up my kitchen, for example, or better yet, my garage, Waitley recommends joining a circle of friends who support one another in doing whatever it takes to achieve their goals. This way, friends help each other get closer and closer to their big goals and eventually achieve them.
Our brain loves to be rewarded. Celebrate your progress, celebrate achieving your goals! Create a certificate for yourself, treat yourself to a reward, a particularly lovely dinner, a trip or some relaxation at a spa. Enjoy your success and then get going again right away. Momentum is important.
