FEMOSPHERE

I am challenging myself to post every Monday in January for a little series I’m calling “Motivation Monday.” It will be an article focused on a self-help topic that has helped me and is something I want to expand on.

With the new year comes a very really temptation to make intense, challenging goals for yourself. You’ve heard the expression, “Shoot for the moon, you’ll land among the stars.”

One example of the type of goal I’m referring to is the 75-hard, which I’ve written about before. For those who don’t know, the 75-hard is a 75-day mental and physical fitness challenge. To participate in the challenge, you must work out for 45 minutes twice a day, read ten pages of a non-fiction book each day, drink a gallon of water, stick to a diet, and not consume alcohol. If you miss one of these goals the challenge starts over to day one.

Now that we’ve begun a new year, I’m seeing lots of people begin this challenge and lots of people fail and don’t pick it up again. If you aren’t already used to reading, going to the gym, eating clean this challenge is very intense.

It requires you to manage your time well and to be disciplined, two very skills to develop especially in an age where time management problems and instant gratification problems are rampant.

I would argue that, for the average working person, a goal like that of 75-hard (just an example that can be applied to any intense challenge) is not sustainable.

I would even argue that it would be far better to set one of these goals, than all at once, especially if these goals aren’t something you already regularly observe.

Dr. Jordan Peterson tells the story of a patient of his whose only goal was to vacuum his carpet. Dr. Peterson acknowledges that his patient’s inability to do this simple task was representative of deeper psychological issues. What I found interesting about this subject was Peterson’s advice.

He recommended that his patient not vacuum the carpet, simply bring the vacuum into the room. The next week, to simply plug it in.

At first glance, this seems so miniscule, such an embarrassing goal to make because it is a simple task.

What Dr. Peterson was doing in his treatment was to break the goal down into small increments that his patient would actually be able to do. He broke down the task that seemed impossible, to much smaller steps. Because the patient took the steps so slowly, he was rewarded with the feeling of accomplishment much sooner than he would be had he vacuumed the whole carpet in one fell swoop.

To the patient, vacuuming the carpet was a mountain of a task, but moving the vacuum to his room was something he could do.

For you, you may really want to learn to cook. You may know nothing about cooking, grocery shopping or meal planning and your diet consists of fast food and take-out. If you’re coming from that background, learning to cook seems insurmountable.

It seems difficult, daunting, expensive, and there’s so many ways to do it wrong. It would be foolish to start out by making beef wellington for dinner when you’ve never cooked more than ramen noodles.

When your food doesn’t turn out you’ll get extremely discouraged.

Instead, start with something small. Learn how to make mashed potatoes, or a good pasta sauce. Then progress to bigger things.

Set yourself up for longevity. Biting off more than you can chew is a sure-fire way to immediately burn out and give up. Guaranteed, whatever goal you have can be broken up into small pieces and taken step by step.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, don’t expect instant success.