Three Ingredients to Achieve Your Goals
INGREDIENT #1: INERTIA
in • er • tia
/i ' nərSHə/
noun
A tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged
I had a graduate school professor who always reminded me, “Getting over inertia is the hardest part.”
It is.
It’s easy to stay the same. It’s easy to do nothing. It’s easy to remain unchanged.
But, in the long run, that can make things really hard.
The story you want to tell—the things you’ve always wanted to change, achieve, or do—can only happen if you take that first step. And even though that first step can seem enormous—sometimes it’s a whole heap of an ingredient—it’s a must have within your recipe for the story you’ve always dreamed up.
What can you do today?
Send out that application
Pick up the phone and call that person
Sign up for that race
Go for that run
Organize one cabinet
Pick ONE thing that feeds into your goal and just do it—no ifs, ands, or buts.
INGREDIENT #2: MOMENTUM
I think Arnold Palmer sums up the second ingredient pretty well:
“It’s a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.”
Once you take that first step, goal-achievement is simply about both maintaining momentum and creating momentum.
What one thing can you do each day—week after week, month after month—that helps you make forward progress on your goal?
What one thing can you do each day—week after week, month after month—that sets you up the following day to continually make progress toward your goal?
Momentum in Action
My wife, Julie, is currently training for her second Ironman triathlon—a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run—on May 7th in St. George Utah.
“That’s crazy! I could never do that!”
Using momentum, you sure could.
For the past 4 months, I’ve watched Julie consistently chip away at this goal—more often than not by simply putting in 1 hour a day of exercise.
“One hour a day?!? Yeah, right.”
By doing this day after day, week after week, and month after month, the one hour a day starts to add up to something significant and she is inching—yes, inching happens with an Ironman—closer to her goal.
All this while balancing being a new mom with a full-time job.
How?
By creating momentum for the following day: the lights are out by 9:30pm so that she can get up by 5am the following morning to get her workout in before our son gets up.
So, once you get over inertia, ask yourself:
What little thing can I do today to maintain momentum?
What little thing can I do today to create momentum for tomorrow?
INGREDIENT #3: PATIENCE
Oh, how nice it’d be if our goal happened immediately. Wouldn’t it be great if we ate well for one whole day and saw some amazing numbers on the scale the following day?
We can’t fault ourselves for this kind of thinking, though. Being immersed in a quick-fix society, we’ve all been led to believe that change will come to us immediately.
There is a pill to fix anything that ails us.
There is a diet that will lead to a perfect body.
There is a 7-minute workout that will ensure fitness.
And, there is an app that will instantly organize our lives.
Throughout our lives, we’ve been sold an enticing idea that we can skip the drudgery of work and take a shortcut to success.
The third ingredient to achieve your goal runs counter to this mindset: patience.
Achieving a goal is hard work.
Achieving a goal takes time.
Achieving a goal requires patience.
But, the great thing about these things—hard work, time, and patience—is that you end up with one heck of a story.
It’s worth the wait. Or, as the saying goes, “the juice is worth the squeeze.”
