Wanting vs. Doing

Have you ever had an incredible inspiration moment? Maybe a new career path that is far beyond what you could have ever thought, and might be the turning point in your life. Or maybe a new plan for working out, that will bring you to maximum results, and you are fully pumped already imagining yourself there.

And then you don’t do it.

That’s nothing new. It’s so frequent, especially around New Year’s Eve. It’s not something I have to tell you, it’s as known as the fact that the Sun is 149.600.000 kilometers away from Earth. I had to Google that, so the habit of not doing what you said you would on N.Y.E. is far more common than science. (I wish there was a spooky fonts that I could apply to the word “science”. There aren’t any, so do it with your imagination.)

That’s the sun, if you didn’t know (Photo by James Douglas on Unsplash)

You set yourself a goal, a giant-enormous-shiny-amazing-lifesolving-moneymaking-waytoomuchtoreadalltogether goal. You already visualize how awesome you will become, or how rich, and how improved your life will be. You get so excited.

And that’s where the problems surfaces.

You feel enthusiastic, and that is so great that it gives you an excuse to then not take action. Maybe you make the commitment in the evening, thinking: “Tomorrow morning I’m going to start! It’s going to be incredible!” From there, you either do it for a while and then stop (but still, you did something), or you just wake up the next morning and fall back in your routine of complaining about the fact that it’s Monday or that there’s a tedious thing that you have to do at work, and that’s bothering you.

I looked up “Monday”, there are only pictures of coffee. (Photo by Alex on Unsplash)

So, what can you do to sustain the commitments that you have made?

Here are some key points that might help you to change perspective and achieve what you want.

1. Think about the steps, not the goal
   Setting a goal is fantastic, it gives us purpose and gives you the impression that you are bettering yourself. But you are not. Improving is a journey. If you focus on the end, the whole journey is going to cause you a lot of suffering. Imagine having to travel in a car for 12 hours. If you keep thinking about your destination for 12 hours, you are going to melt. What you have to do instead, is to set a goal, put it aside, and focus on your next step. What this also does is making the whole process look a lot less frightening. If you obsess about the fact that you have to go to the gym for 12 months, you are going to be scared, because that’s a lot of work to do for someone that never worked out. But if you realize that the only real workout that you have to do is the next, it’s going to be a lot lighter and enjoyable.

2. Surround yourself with things/people that support you
   Taking the gym example again, you are not going to resist too long if you only hang out with people that never do exercise and that say that people that go to the gym waste their time. You are always conditioned by what surrounds you. You can either help them change their mind, and introduce them to a healthier lifestyle, or you can meet people that workout and go to the gym with them. This doesn’t mean that you have to completely cut off your friends (although sometimes that might be the case), but that you can balance between them and some new people that share new interests and passions with you.

3. Give yourself some rewards
   You have taken the decision of embarking a new path and you took a commitment to better yourself! Isn’t that already enough to reward yourself? Never be too harsh on you. It doesn’t help. It will make you miserable and you will start to hate what you do. You’ll end up forgetting why you got into it in the first place and you are going to give up. It’s not going to be easy. You are stepping out of your comfort zone, you are learning new information, adapting your schedule to the changes and you need something to sustain you along the journey. Sure enough, treating yourself well and enjoying the fruits of your hard work can be a nice way to do this.

Feeling excited to do something new or having a new idea is great, but don’t be the person that gets pleasure just by saying out loud ideas and then never commits. Words don’t make the difference, actions do.