Commitment over Passion and Motivation: Here’s what achieving your goals truly looks like!

Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: One of the foundations of a high-performing business is a high-performing individual. If you think about it, everything starts with yourself and your well-being. You won’t be able to manage your firm properly and effectively if your body is ailing or if you’re not in the right state of mind. That’s why it’s important that as an independent professional, you also make sure that you prioritize your health to be able to perform well. Keep reading to know one of the things that will help you kickstart your journey to greatness. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

Commitment over Passion and Motivation: Here’s what achieving your goals truly looks like! Reaching Your Goals Takes Work Let’s open this article with a good metaphor on achieving your goals: Gym memberships. If you know someone who is a gym owner or a gym instructor, he or she would probably tell you that January is the most lucrative month of the year. Why? It’s the time when a lot of people experience the aftermath of eating too much during the holiday season! This is also the time when gyms offer discounts and run marketing campaigns, hoping to appeal to those who are serious about sticking to one of their New Year’s resolution: Getting in shape. Well, getting fit is a worthwhile resolution… but staying fit is a different thing. Talk to that gym owner or instructor again. There might be instances where he or she would tell you that come February, a lot of those who were so passionate in January would stop showing up. Only 8% of them stuck to their New Year’s resolution. For the other 92%, motivation waned, excitement ran out, and it’s back to the couch instead of the gym. What does this tell you? Reaching your goals takes work. Achieving your goals is hard work. It requires doing some things you don’t even want to do. So, when your motivation runs out or the excitement to do work is no longer there, you have to dig deep to stay committed to your goals. There are two types of responses when you’re faced with a challenge or hard work: It’s either you give up or you burn yourself out. Those are both not ideal because according to research, working sustainably towards a goal that matters to you is one of the best ways to enrich your life. Create your own purpose; don’t search for it. Instead of trying so hard to discover who you are, why not decide on who you want to be and actively create that person? This will help you become much more committed towards achieving your goals in life. Identify a purpose that matters to you at a deep level. Get as specific as possible and write it down if you may. Then, let that purpose drive your goals. It’s what will keep you going on the path to success. Set good goals for yourself (and actually achieve them). Once you’ve identified or created your purpose, choose your purpose-driven goals and figure out how to achieve them on a practical level. Set clear parameters for success. That way, you’ll easily know when you succeed and when you fail, and figure out where you’re falling short and what you have to do to correct it. Avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Failure is an inevitable part of growth―it's important feedback. Failures tell you when you’re falling short of your goals and give you an opportunity to examine yourself, identify the things you’re not doing well, and correct them. However, it takes humility to accept your shortcomings and fix them in a kind manner. Don’t try to avoid failure―that’s impossible. Instead, make yourself more resilient to failure by having several goals at once. For example: It’s possible for you to fail on goal A but do well on goals B and C. That makes the failure on goal A less frustrating and devastating because you know not all of your efforts failed. Succeeding on goals B and C means there’s just one or some area in your execution that didn’t go well, which is why you failed on goal A. The bottom line? Set three or four attainable goals at a time. More than these can be quite overwhelming and decrease the value of each goal. On the other hand, fewer than these means you’re too invested in each goal and when you fail, you’ll be more likely to feel crushed. Use these four tips to set good goals for yourself and actually achieve them. Be clear and specific on what you want, why, and how you’re going to achieve those objectives. Instill a sense of purpose in your life as you work towards your goals. You’ll be amazed and surprised at what you can do! Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for next Friday’s article!