|
Where You’re At
I am absolutely terrible at setting goals. No matter what I am trying to do, I always tend to make goals that are way too aggressive. For instance, when deciding that I wanted to become more of a morning person, I decided that I should wake up everyday at 6am. This was a large jump from my normal wake up time of 8-8:30ish. So needless to say that didn’t last long. After many years of making too aggressive of goals and constantly not following through with them, I started to realize what I was doing and learned the importance of setting goals that start where you currently are.
For instance, when I was trying to become more of a morning person, maybe instead of trying to wake up at 6am every day, I could’ve aimed for 7:30, or even just consistently 8 and cutting out the days I over sleep. Then over time I could possibly make it earlier and earlier as I am ready to do so. I understand that sometimes situations call for dramatic changes in goals or lifestyle, but often times I think we, or at least I, find myself making goals that if achieved would be amazing, but attempting to achieve them might not actually be the healthiest or smartest thing to do.
We live in a world where it is easy to play the comparison game with others or even against ourselves. I constantly find myself wondering about ways I could personally be better or more productive, like waking up earlier to do work. So I think it is easy for us to dismiss small improvements as not worth the effort.
I was talking to somebody the other day about meditating and how we always think of meditation as a long drawn out thing in a quite room. But he had recently had a realization that having this idea of meditation needing to be a whole ordeal made it impossible for him to even start. He didn’t want to carve an hour out of his day, or even his week, to start meditating. Even though it seemed like something he wanted, it was just too big and scary for him to even try. That’s when he realized that he just needed to start where he was, which at the time was the 5 minutes left on his drive home. At the end of the day small improvements are actually a really big deal, because they are a step in the right direction and will hopefully end up creating a much larger improvement over time.
So that is my challenge to you this week: start where you are. I think everyone has something, or a whole list of things, they want to start doing but it just seem like too daunting of a task. However, there is probably a way to start small and work your way up. The hardest part can often be accepting that the small step is worth your time, and I can assure you it is!
Stay Motivated,
-Dan
|
