New Year is here! So you want to achieve something this year? Well, get to work. Define your goals. What do you want to work hard at and why. Know both the what and the why. The how comes in later. You won’t commit to working hard for pursuits that are not important to you. End goal or deep personal meaning are a requirement. Otherwise, you will give up or burn out before you achieve anything. Either way, you will waste your time.
The content of the what matters only to you. Whatever you choose, make sure you consider it important to you. No one else needs to even hear about it. You can try to save the children from starvation. You can write a book. You can aim to lose weight. Avoid comparing goals with other people. Only you know what you are passionate about and why.
Once you know your what and why, start working. And the secret of it all? Consistency leads to success. You won’t build incremental gains without consistent work. Working hard without consistency doesn’t exist. No one starts off as an expert. You improve with time and practice. Sporadic activity doesn’t deliver results. I write articles every week to improve my skill. I will look back in couple of months or even years and the quality of my writing will horrify me. My writing would have gotten better through practice. I hope.
Relying on motivation to help overcome all obstacles is a mistake. It only lasts for a small while. The first day, or maybe week of the new year. Then you forget all about it. It fizzles out or something new catches your eye. Hard work produces motivation and inspiration as a by product. Waiting for either to appear out of thin air is a sure way to never get started.
How do you work on your goals? You create a habit. I won’t talk about habits in-depth here but I recommend an amazing book on habits called Tiny Habits from B.J. Fogg. You will learn how to form helpful habits one small step at a time if you read this book. The habit has to get to a point where you will perform it automatically. I encounter a lot of resistance when I start something new, I like my routine. Once I make the activity a habit, the resistance mostly disappears. It creeps up occasionally but overcoming it gets easier. Once the behaviour becomes a habit, you need to keep repeating it and avoid skipping more than twice in a row. Any more and you endanger your positive habit by creating a new unhelpful one.
Working hard means working smart. Work on the things that get you the most value. Detailed planning of a my future book is important. But if I get stuck in the planning phase and never put pen to paper, all the planning counts for nothing. You need to differentiate between tasks. Some are essential, others will only waste your time. Having a lot on your plate and running around stressed doesn’t mean you’re productive. Pick your battles. Some need to be fought, some will hinder your progress.
Why do you fill your time with distractions instead of actually doing the work? You love to procrastinate. Everything seems super important as long as it doesn’t relate to your main task. Companies designed your phone to steal your attention. Developers built shiny apps to keep you scrolling. Delivery services brought food a click away. Big business doesn’t want you to work hard because then you’d spend less time giving them money. Don’t be their slave. Use them for what you need and then ditch them.
Fighting distractions is important. It takes a lot of effort but saves a lot of time. Achieving goals is usually not quick. It takes time and patience. Distractions don’t only steal time away from you, they also steal your energy. You need energy to produce quality. You have limited energy. It shouldn’t get depleted by jumping from irrelevant thing to another. Instagram can wait.
Distractions and procrastinations are not the only enemies. You will encounter others on your journey. Fears. You can fear both success and failure. Sometimes at the same time. Success doesn’t equal happiness, one can be successful and unhappy. What if achieving your goals doesn’t bring you the happiness you hoped for? Fear of failure is normal, not only for perfectionists. If working hard doesn’t lead to the results you expected, it can crush you. But you need to remember: even if you don’t succeed now, the lessons you’ve learnt from the failure will help you achieve your goals in the future. Consistency helps you defeat these enemies. Make hard work a habit and reduce the push back you feel against working at your craft.
- Set goals and review the goals periodically. Review them as often as possible unless it steals valuable time from the actual activity. Invite accountability in to your life.
- Set a schedule of when and where you will work. Out of sight, out of mind. If you don’t schedule the work, you won’t remember to sit down and do it.
- Celebrate successes. Sticking to a schedule or getting X per cent into the goal is worthy of celebrating. Don’t wait for perfection to celebrate, it’ll never come.
You can hardly work and achieve a lot. Hard work doesn’t have to take over your life and prevent you from enjoying it. Work hard for couple of hours each week and make sure to work on relevant things that will get you towards your goal. You will struggle at first. Distractions, procrastination and fears will continue to try to stop you. Resistance will come up. Reviewing your progress and holding yourself accountable are still essential. Otherwise, you might stop moving forward. Going down is easier than going up. Loosing good habits is easier than acquiring them.