New Year, New You!
New Year's is Monday squared. We dream and sincerely believe that from January we will start a new life . With new plans and desires. We will not convince you: dream, change, become better! And so that this does not become empty chatter, advice from the best motivational books will help you set goals and achieve them.
Instead of goals, think about feelings:
How do you usually set goals? Write in a notebook what do you want to achieve? Try it differently - go not from the action, but from the feelings.
First decide how you want to feel (happy, calm, determined, in harmony), and then plan your days, weeks and months, based on your invented good state. It turns out that you select a goal that fits the feelings that you have planned for yourself. Let's say that in order to feel joy every day, it is vital for you to do charity work - visit children in a shelter, be a volunteer and take care of homeless animals. All people are different. It may happen that you do not need a three-room apartment at all, which you are going to take on a mortgage and then spend another 30 years to pay back the money. Maybe a house 10 minutes drive from the city is enough for you - and you will be no less happy person. The point is to listen carefully to yourself, and not to chase the goals that society imposes. In fact, we are not striving for any specific goal, but for the feelings that will arise when it is achieved: sincere joy, genuine self-pride, peaceful calmness, a sense of self-worth, unshakable self-confidence. That's what people want. This is what we are all heading towards, albeit unconsciously.
External motivation:
It is believed that you need to move towards goals in accordance with internal motivation. But sometimes it evaporates like dewdrops in the sun! We want to be slim and beautiful, but there is no strength to resist the cake in the evening. What to do?
Ultrarunner Travis Macy believes that extrinsic motivation is often practical and constructive, even if some see it as less noble or pure.
“As a coach, I see the self-motivation many amateur athletes resort to,” he writes. “They want to run their first ultramarathon, or at least part of it, to write about it on Facebook, to raise their status in the eyes of their clubmates, to impress a girlfriend or boyfriend. At the same time, it is highly likely that in the process of training they will discover higher motives in themselves. But if they run 20 miles on a workout I designed on Sunday and only get 75 “likes” on the finish photo on Facebook... great!” It is believed that you need to move towards goals in accordance with internal motivation. But sometimes it evaporates like dewdrops in the sun! We want to be slim and beautiful, but there is no strength to resist the cake in the evening. What to do?
Write in a notebook what will motivate you on the way to your dream. Source Travis himself does not hide the fact that he participates in races not only because it fills him with joy. The prize fund is one of the reasons that picks him up early in the morning and brings him to the track.
This does not mean that you need to give up intrinsic motivation:
Just add an external stimulus (money, fame, whatever!) to each goal you want to achieve in the new year. When intrinsic motivation dries up, it will help you stay on your toes.
Never miss twice in a row:
If achieving a goal requires regular action (going to the gym, attending English classes), work on forming a habit. The main thing is to stick to consistency. Remember the rule: never miss twice in a row. Otherwise, there is a great chance to end the habit once and for all. If you skip one day - this will reduce the chances of a long-term stable result by about 5%, double absenteeism reduces them by 40%. Three days - and you can start all over again, because you missed your chance and created the conditions for unpunished "truancy" in the future.
It seems that this is not true. It's easier to be optimistic and believe that a couple of missed days on the scale of the entire operation means nothing and that tomorrow you will catch up with everything. But if you did this once with this attitude, and then twice, then you can no longer trust your judgments.
If this happened to you, then doing the missed action next time should be your priority. You must do this at any cost. Make it perfect if you can, or outrageously bad if that's all you can do.
"The 4:30 AM Rule"
Pro ultra runner Travis Macy suggests sticking to the 4:30 a.m. rule to achieve your goals: It's not just about getting up early to get more done in the day. This rule has a deeper meaning. In short, if you make a firm decision in advance, then when the time comes to act, you are no longer distracted by thoughts about whether you want to do it or not.
The rule is this: when the alarm goes off at 4:30 in the morning, you have to get up and get to work, even if—and especially if—what you want more than anything in the world is to roll over and get some more sleep. But don't take this rule literally; getting up at 4:30 in the morning is just an example of the strong will you need to have in order to succeed. For you, this rule may sound a little different or mean doing different things at certain times of the day or week. The point is that you make some commitment in advance and thereby forgo any further choice on the matter.
A strong inner commitment—to a training program, a project, a job, a relationship, raising a child—is the most important thing you can do in life. This is where it all starts. By accepting the "4:30 AM rule" for yourself, literally or figuratively, you forgo all alternatives. Waking up when most people are still asleep can be the first step towards reaching your goal.
A strong inner commitment—to a training program, a project, a job, a relationship, raising a child—is the most important thing you can do in life. This is where it all starts!
Getting up early can be practiced once a week. It can be assumed that there are not very many who want to “wake up and sing” at such an early hour. But the “4:30 AM rule” isn’t really for them at all. Most people love to sleep, and you are probably no exception. This is the whole point: if you have adopted such a rule for yourself, you get up in any situation.
This psychological setting cuts off any deviations from the goal:
The key idea is to cancel for yourself the very possibility of giving up, because the decision has already been made in advance. Make a plan in advance so that at the right time the “4:30 am rule” will work.
Life hacks for setting goals and achieving them:
Here are some more tips from books on goal setting.
● Break down long-term goals into short-term ones.
● Do your best to get better.
● Think about global questions (“Am I living right?”) More often than once a year.
● Set the most daring goals that “ignite” you.
● Introduce changes gradually. For example, once a week.
Be confident in yourself and you will succeed! Happy New Year!
