Are you failing to reach your big goals? Here’s how to get back on track and make real progress by giving your dreams a healthy environment to grow.
How do you realize your dreams? Most of the time, you’ve got to have a plan. In other words, set some goals.
People usually fall into one of three camps: those who set and reach their goals, those who set and fail to attain their goals and those who NEVER set them because they’ve tried and failed so many times that they’ve given up.
If you’re too discouraged to even think about your dreams and goals, I want you to know your life can get better. I’ve been there, and I talk more about that toward the end of this post or you can go here to learn how to give your mindset a makeover.
I’ve written before on how to make resolutions you will keep and three books to help you live with purpose and make progress on your goals. But this time, I want to spotlight how to change your approach to working on your dreams so you can be more successful.
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If you are totally rocking your goals, then feel free to skip this blog post. But if you, like me, want to make progress on your goals and dreams but get overwhelmed and discouraged by your failures, please read on.
From losing weight to getting organized to writing a book or starting a business, we’ve got lofty goals. What does it take to make our big dreams come true? I’m attempting to crack the code on making progress. Are you ready for this?
Identifying your big goals is essential, but once you know what you want, you need to shift your focus and cultivate hope.
All of these approaches operate from a hopeful place. Instead of just waiting for to feel hope, you learn to cultivate hope by taking action and training your thoughts.
The simple formula to make real progress
Don’t focus on the outcome, focus on your identity and your systems. And don’t freak out when you encounter obstacles.
I just finished the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. He writes, “Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the person you wish to become.”
Once we have the identity in mind, we look at the system. The system I’m embracing is to devote 15 minutes a day minimum toward my big goal.
I’m a blogger who isn’t making money on her blog (yet), but I’m already a person who gets paid to write (the definition of a professional writer) now as freelancer and in the past as a reporter.
I’ve spent thousands of hours writing, but I haven’t spent thousands of hours working on blogging. There are MANY tasks to build a successful blog beyond just writing a post. There’s growing your email list, posting on social media, creating products, photography, videos, graphic design, all the tech tasks… Anyway, the idea is to spend time each day working on my blog, especially the non-writing tasks where I struggle. I’m going to designate 15 minutes a day to work on tasks beyond writing a post.
Here’s another example. If you want to write a book, you need to start thinking of yourself as a writer. What do writers do? They write. That’s the identity piece.
Then you look at your system. You don’t have a lot of extra time in your daily schedule, but you want to build in the habit of writing every day. Your system is to write for 15 minutes every single day. Some days, You can write longer, but ALWAYS show up for at least 15 minutes. Let’s say you only write 200 words in that 15 minutes. That’s not very much, but in less than a year, you can write more than 70,000 words, the length of many books.
The idea is to build a habit that helps you make progress on your goal. Don’t make the habit too hard or you’ll fail. That’s why I say do something for 15 minutes a day. Who doesn’t have 15 minutes to devote to achieving a BIG dream? I can find plenty of excuses to skip writing for an hour on a busy day, but 15 minutes, not so much.
Here are some more examples: if you want to lose weight, spend a few minutes tracking your food intake and recording it on an app like My Fitness Pal. If you want to get organized, spend 15 minutes a day working on your trouble areas. Focus on one space at a time so you can better appreciate the results.
Here’s another key to success.
“Where the magic happens”
Look at the long-term impact of your daily decisions.
“The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson“The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson examines the power of compounded actions, for better or worse.
He writes, “Simple daily disciplines or simple errors in judgment repeated consistently over time make you or break you.”
Whether it’s walking the dog or spending hours each evening watching Netflix, the little actions in your day accumulate and either build you up or tear you down.
Olson writes that many of us are looking for that “quantum leap” that will make our lives better. He compares the idea to winning the lottery. The truth is you can’t go from planting to harvesting. You need to cultivate and cultivating takes time. The idea of a quantum leap is “a complete and utter myth.”
This banana slug (Go UC Santa Cruz!) reminds me a little progress is better than no progress.
How do you improve your life? He says it’s simple but not easy. You take positive steps. We don’t think it matters much when we skip the positive action. It’s so tiny, it doesn’t really matter if you skip it every once in a while. The reality is that we are making our lives better or worse in that moment. Think on that a bit.
“Showing up consistently is where the magic happens,” he writes.
For many reps, your progress may seem insignificant but then one day you wake up and you’ve written 70,000 words or you’ve lost 50 pounds.
Now there are times when we have great plans and we start with gusto, and then we encounter an obstacle. This brings me to another crucial mindset change.
Expect AND embrace challenges
What do you do when things go wrong?
It could be the flu, a busted water pipe, a rejection letter or you don’t get that promotion.
There’s a school of thought that says you shouldn’t just expect obstacles, you should embrace them.
In “The Obstacle is the Way,” Ryan Holiday writes that dealing with difficulties makes us better and stronger than we were before.
He encourages people to see that they can deal with obstacles in a positive way, learn something in the process and use that knowledge to help others.
A lot of us want a problem-free life, but as long as we’re breathing, we’re going to encounter problems. And that’s a good thing. They give us the opportunity to become better versions of ourselves. Holiday writes, “The path of least resistance is a terrible teacher.
“Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement or disorder. It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. It’s supposed to be hard.”
This idea isn’t new. In fact, it’s a running theme throughout the Bible. We grow stronger and better when we deal with adversity.
Two verses immediately came to mind when I read Holiday’s book:
When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. – James 1:2-4
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5
There is is again, that word HOPE. You can train yourself to have hope when you follow this path of perseverance.
Because of challenges, your plan may change over time, and that’s okay. It’s normal to have to adjust on the fly.
I want to leave you with an encouragement about grace. If you’re fresh off a failure, you CAN begin again. And the next time you fail, trust that God is for you.
Don’t let your big goals keep you from rest and your most important relationships.
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul?” – Jesus in Mark 8:36
God created you for a purpose. There is no one in the world who brings your exact gifts and experience. Use them well but don’t lose sight of the rich picture of your life, growing deeper in your faith and in your ability to love.
What big goal can you work toward 15 minutes at a time?
What obstacle is slowing you down? How can you use it to learn and grow?
What to do if you’re overcome by overwhelm
Maybe all this talk of goals just gets on your nerves. You’re already overwhelmed with just making it through your day. I’ve been there. Some days I’m still there. In the last few years I’ve dealt with getting laid off, chronic health issues of a loved one, a nest that may or may not be emptying (not sure which is worse) and many other weighty concerns.
Tough times come to us all. We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose our attitude and our effort.
If you’re anything like me, I have a tough time giving great effort if my attitude stinks. But guess what? You can change your attitude. If you start thinking new thoughts, you can begin to build resilience. That ability to persevere in difficulties.
I compiled the Mindset Makeover to help me intentionally work on my attitude. If you think a purposeful approach might work for you, you can check it out here. It’s a free download that covers eight simple choices to help you make progress, reduce the overwhelm and cultivate more hope in your life.
Got dreams for your life? Choosing your mindset will help you get there. You can learn to cultivate hope.
