Progress

One of the most common challenges I see and hear about from students is connected to the frustration of wanting to achieve your goals while also struggling to stay motivated for those same goals.  Some of you will talk about that in relation to your grades saying things like, "I want to do better and get good grades, but I just don't have the motivation for it."  Others talk about it with personal goals such as with sports.  In this situation it might sound like, "I want to start on the team next fall, but it's so far away it's hard to make myself run on my own right now."  Or it could be in relation to a personal challenge you're facing such as navigating difficult situations with friends.

No matter what the dynamic or situation you are facing it is easy to get sucked into believing that there will be a better time in the future to do whatever it is that you're contemplating.  And, it is also easy to think that motivation will carry you through.  Sadly, neither of those things are effective in helping when the distractions and temptation to procrastinate are strong.

So what can you do?  You can set the bar low to start and raise it once you get going.

What do I mean and what would that look like?  I might think I "should" run a certain distance every day.  But instead I end up not running all week.  So if I shift my thinking and set the bar low to start then I am going to tell myself I will run for 5 minutes and then decide from there if I am going to keep going or not.  If I quit after 5 minutes, ok, I stopped.  But at least I got 5 minutes of work in towards my goal which is better than not starting at all.  And, many times, I will be able to raise the bar for myself and do more than 5 minutes of running.  Maybe I will run for 10 minutes or maybe I will go my whole desired length of time or distance, but no matter what, I am doing better than if I had never started.

If you expect yourself to be perfect then it is easy to fall short of that goal and therefore give up on even trying before you really get started.  But by setting the bar low, you know that you can achieve that simple goal and then you can keep raising it so that step by step you will end up making progress.

If you are needing help with making progress towards any of your goals, I hope you will stop and see me.  We can work together to help identify some realistic low bar goals that you could start with and then ways that you can gradually increase those goals towards supporting your desire to make progress.  Remember, I believe in you and know that you can achieve anything you desire and work for in the future.