The 2 essential reminders you need to stay the course with your ambitions
Restarting and picking yourself up over and over again is something you will have to face when you’re in the process of chasing down your dreams. But by keeping a few mental reminders at the forefront of your mind, you can be at peace with what you need to do to keep getting closer.
Success starts with a single step
“The struggle is guaranteed, success is not” — Tom Bilyeu.
So we’ve chosen our dream, broken it down into a path to follow and even have in front of us what we should be doing right now for our first win. This process in and of itself is a huge step, but what we’ve done so far is just a cognitive exercise. We haven’t actually started.
The real work starts when we take action and that is more emotional than anything else. But guess what? Every journey starts like this. It takes the most energy to go from idle to motion.
The Boeing 747–8 jet as an example, will use approximately 90% of its max power just to take off. 90%.
Going from 0 to 1 will always require a lot of energy. Especially for a new challenge. But luckily we can make things easier by breaking down the process into smaller actions.
Staying on the transportation theme, think about when we drive our cars. Every time we start our cars and head off on a new journey, how many steps would you say are involved in the process from getting in the car to reaching our destination?
3, 5?
In reality, there are countless small steps that take place unconsciously that we’re doing every single time that we no longer have to think about now because we’ve done them so many, damn times.
However, it wasn’t always like this.
When we first began, we had no idea what we were doing. Everything was new as we had to consciously create a new map in our minds for the activity. And this familiarization process can be a lengthy one, varying in time from person to person.
But conscious repetition in the short term creates unconscious speed in the long term.
What this means is that over time, by repeating certain actions over hundreds of repetitions the brain forms an understanding of how to complete the activity. It creates its’ map.
This then makes it easier for us to remember the activity by hard wiring the map’s associated neural pathways so they don’t take up as much energy to run.
This now becomes like an automated set of actions running in the back of our overall ‘car start’ program. And guess what? We can achieve this exact effect in any endeavour we want to do that has an element of repetition to it.
Whatever it is in front of us we can break down even that first, daunting starting set of actions into smaller parts and focus on completing them consciously. Again and again. Until they’re no longer a big deal. Until they become unconscious.
And that should be the goal for a lot of what we do, especially around mundane things like prepping our work area before a deep work session, or reflecting after it is done.
If it matters, and if it repeats, work to make it unconscious.
But once we’ve managed to get started on our way and we’re building some momentum, no matter how big or small steps we’ve taken and the time that’s passed, sooner or later we’re going to run into difficulties along the way.
Difficulties of all different shapes and sizes. Difficulties in different forms and guises.
And this is what we must remember as we begin.
That success is not guaranteed in any way by us acting, though we increase our chances. What is guaranteed though, are the struggles. So therefore, learn to love the pursuit and more so, embrace the struggle. It’ll never be too far away.
Let’s burn this one into our brains.
This will be something we’ll be repeatedly revisiting no matter what stage we find ourselves at. The struggle is never too far away.
So when we’re in the midst of those slower days, where we don’t feel up to it because the obstacle we’re facing feels insurmountable…
Relax. Breathe.
And remember who you’ve chosen to be.
You are the person that isn’t concerned about the prize.
You’re the person who isn’t in it for the external rewards.
You’re in this for the long haul.
You know getting started is the most difficult part.
You know it takes time to take a new pattern and make it unconscious.
You know that repetition is how you get speed.
You know soon as this obstacle is tackled, another new struggle is coming.
And you’re the person that, good and bad, is accepting of it all.
