It can be hard to stick with goals, but these tips will help you stay motivated and keep going!
I saw a great comic today that showed a girl all wrapped up in her blanket taking one baby step in each panel. In the last panel, she looked back and smiled at all the progress she made by simply baby-stepping every day.
We get so caught up in making these big, sweeping changes, but the power is in the continual, relentless progress.
It’s like water dripping on a rock. One drop doesn’t do much, neither does one torrential downpour. But one drop, consistently over time can wear down the stone.
What stone do you need to wear down? And what’s that one drop you can continually do to work at it?
Maybe your rock is to lose weight, and your continual drip is making one healthy food choice after another.
Maybe your rock is debt and your continual drip is each dollar you send its way.
Your rock could even be a mountain of laundry and your continual drop is doing one load. Laundry definitely feels like that, a never-ending dripping.
Change doesn’t have to be hard, for each problem that you’re facing try to find that one small action you can continually take to wear it away.
The hardest thing is to keep the motivation going since each action doesn’t seem to make an appreciable difference. Here are some ways to keep motivated and keep progressing.
Don’t break the chain
The simplest way to track a daily action is to get a calendar and X-out every day you do it. Seinfeld is a fan of this method.
According to Brad Issac, a young comedian, when he asked Seinfeld for advice, “He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.
“After a few days, you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”
This method is all about consistency and can work for any tasks you want to do daily.
Don’t beat yourself up if you have a couple of false starts. It can take a little while to settle into a new routine and work it into your life. Give yourself grace to work out the kinks, but once you work them out- power on ahead.
Something is better than nothing
Another method is to “touch” your task once a day, even if you can’t do the whole thing.
You missed your alarm and don’t have time to do your full workout- then do some sit-ups and push-ups. It still gets your pulse going, it still gets your endorphins flowing. Tomorrow, do your best to get back going with your routine.
This helps you keep a habit going, but cut yourself slack when the unexpected things of life pop up.
Automation
Automate what you can. There’s no need to do more work than necessary. Either automate part of the tasks you’re trying to accomplish or automate something else in your life to free up the time to complete your task.
Hire someone to care for your yard and then use that time to prep healthy meals. Or use a meal service and use your saved time to keep your house tidy.
Some of my favorite automations are grocery pickup and robot vacuums. They both force me into routines that are for my own good.
Embrace good enough
The more you do a task, the better and faster you’ll get. Keep optimizing and tweaking. I’m always looking for ways to do things better, faster and more efficiently. At a certain point though, taking more time doesn’t give you a better outcome.
Don’t waste your time and effort keeping your house immaculate every second of everyday. Keep a regular cleaning schedule and tidy up once or twice a day.
Don’t stress that your family isn’t eating all organic, gluten-free, vegan meals. Decide your own definition of healthy, do your best and don’t stress about the rest.
Conclusion
You can’t transform overnight, but through small, consistent efforts you can slowly morph into the person you want to be. Focus on the thing that will give you the most bang for your buck and keep at it!