Often I meet people who have these grand goals, and who were initially very motivated to follow these goals. It could be to write a book (or just an essay), start a business, lose weight, etc. They often start doing the work as well but then, a month or two later, they just kind of stop doing it. They lose that motivation or drive, or they just get caught up in everyday life, and that goal takes the back seat. Maybe later, they hit another point of their life, where they feel the need to change, or maybe it is the new year, and again they decide it’s time to change, and start working toward their goal. However, a month or two later, the same thing happens, and they’re caught up again in everyday life, the motivation is just lacking, and the cycle continues.
When this happens, I usually find that the missing element is a clear and sharp vision. The key word here is Clear. Saying I want to write a book and making that decision may give you the drive for a few days or a few weeks to follow that dream, but it is just not enough. There isn’t enough life in that. When you start losing motivation a few days later or losing focus, your job is not to just try and push through with your willpower, because most people will never win this battle. Your job, if you want to continue working on your dream, is to realize why you lost that motivation or drive in the first place. Often, the answer is because you did not have a clear enough vision in your head of that dream and what it will look like to reach it. You haven’t anchored the feeling of that goal and the sense of achieving it firmly enough within yourself. Therefore you lost sight of it, and you got caught up because that clear vision and those compelling feelings were not there to attract you toward them anymore, you lost focus.
Clarity is a key. When you first write down a goal, for instance, to reach a certain weight at the gym, do not stop there. Visualize what you will look like, build a compelling image of yourself after you have achieved that goal. How would you feel like, once you achieved that goal, how would you move, talk, interact with others in your new body? Build an EXCITING image that will pull you toward it, so that you don’t have to do a lot pushing to get there. Make the image, and the feelings you create as clear and as real as possible. When that image is pulling you toward your goal, you do not need to continue pushing and shoving with your willpower alone making every day feel like a fight. Instead, take time every day to see and feel your goal. When you visualize what you want to achieve,
1-make the image something that really excites you, adding as many details as possible. If your goal is to write a book, then picture yourself walking into the bookstore and picking up that book from the shelf and recognizing your title and your name on it, and imagine how that would feel. See yourself at a book signing event with fans waiting in line, as you sit at the table and sign your new book to the fans, again anchoring positive emotions to that image.
2- Practice your vision on a daily basis. You can make it something you do first thing in the morning, or if you use a planner to schedule your day, practice your vision right before you make your schedule; that way your goal stays on your mind and you’re more likely to schedule time dedicated to achieving what sincerely matters to you. Make sure you schedule time in your day that is dedicated to that goal and do whatever is necessary to reach it.