The Greatest Motivational Force You Can Possibly Harness to Help You Achieve Your Goals
It’s certainly also one of the most positive
When I finished reading my 975th book, I felt way more motivated to read than I ever had before, and that’s because I had tapped into this one source of motivation that can also help launch you towards your biggest goals as well.
Plenty of people have these big ideas of what they want to do, and the kinds of results they want to produce in their own life, but they’re so far away from accomplishing them that they are demotivating themselves in a way that’s just…awful.
They’re stalling their own progress before they really even begin.
It’s progress that is one of the most motivating forces one could ever tap into, but most people aren’t experiencing its full power, for reasons that I’ll explain here.
In my reading example, my original goal was to read 1,000 books before I turned 30. I failed, by the way — I finished my 1,000th book around the time of my 31st birthday.
But in the beginning, when I was so much further away from my goal, I wasn’t nearly as motivated as I became when I read Book #975 (I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson), when I realized that accomplishing my goal was within striking distance.
It was progress that made the difference and got me all fired up to keep going.
Most people — myself included — experience a surge of motivation when we realize that we’re close to achieving our goals. Whether that’s to finish running a race or finish writing a report, when we see that we’re almost done, that’s when our motivation kicks into 5th gear.
You’ve probably felt this before, but perhaps you weren’t exactly able to pinpoint why you felt that way.
Well, more than likely, it was due to the fact that your brain shifted into that higher gear and said, in effect, “We’re almost there! Turn on those jets!”
You need to return to that feeling by any means necessary. I’m going to show you how you can do that.
The “catch-22” here (great book by the way — it was Book #376 for me!) is that, although progress is incredibly motivating, you have to make progress in order to be motivated by it to make further progress.
The way to counteract this is to set up easy wins for yourself — small victories — in order to build up momentum and “catch yourself doing things right,” so to speak.
Catch yourself in the act of succeeding. It’s a fantastic motivator.
It also has to do with the way you talk to yourself, and what you’re looking for.
In a very real sense, we see what we’re looking for in — the human perception systems evolved for this. So when you’re looking for progress, when you’re looking for evidence that you’re moving forward, that’s exactly what you’re going to find.
So do whatever the f*** you have to do to switch that internal narrative around and get on your own side, instead of beating yourself up all the time for your perceived failures.
Look for all the ways in which you’re winning.
It matters. It makes a massive difference to your levels of motivation, not to mention your general happiness.
Next, we’ll look at another way to motivate yourself by looking back on your own progress. This one’s a superpower.
What Gets Measured Motivates You
Alright, so the picture above is kinda funny (right? right?), but the idea behind it is solid.
When you have a track record of progress, and especially a written or visual one, then you can look back on that at any time and tap into that for a sense of awesome motivation.
I have fairly detailed records of where I used to be, what I’m doing now, and what I’m moving towards, and it makes all the difference in the world to my motivation.
It’s something tangible, something real that I can look back on and see how far I’ve actually come. How f***ing hard I’ve worked to get to where I am, and how much further along I am than I used to be.
This is just…inspiring on a whole new level, and it can work exactly the same way for you, no matter what you’re trying to achieve.
You need to measure your progress, and you need to set up a system for reviewing that progress on a regular basis to keep you motivated.
It’s one of the best things you’ll ever do for your motivation, and I am just waiting to hear from you about how you’re applying this idea, what your results have been, and what kind of future you’ve been moving towards.
All the best,
Matt Karamazov