Wish It Want It Do It

If you follow influencers on social media telling you to hustle, it might inspire you to read “Wish It, Want It, Do It” and use the blank pages to start mapping out your grandiose plans. 😁

While you’re riding this wave of motivation, you’ll probably jot down some monumental aspirations that will paint a picture of a life so exciting that you can’t wait to get after it. But when your alarm goes off at 4:30am and you try to roll out of bed, reality slaps you in the face.

Instead of being motivated to jump out of bed and tackle your goals, you feel a wall of internal resistance. You want to hustle. You know you need to get up and go after it. But you can’t seem to muster up the discipline to actually do anything.

So instead, you choose the path of least resistance. You stay nestled up in your warm toasty bed and decide that you’re going to start fresh tomorrow. One more day won’t hurt anything, right? One day turns into two, two days turn into a few weeks, and the weeks turn into months. Several months later you feel another wave of motivation and decide to try all over again. Many people find themselves unable to get off this proverbial hamster wheel.

Why is it that we continually set Mount Everest size goals and don’t accomplish them? You might ask yourself “Is there something wrong with me? Am I a failure?” So how do you stop this vicious cycle? What’s the best way to facilitate lifestyle changes that you can actually stick with?

When setting big goals, we tend to place more focus on the outcome we want to achieve instead of the lifestyle changes needed to get there. We have this inner pull to be consistent with who we’ve always been. Old habits die hard, which is why big goals can be so hard to accomplish. True behavior change comes when you commit to small, consistent shifts in your daily behavior.

When setting goals, people ask themselves “What do I want to achieve?” This places the focus solely on the outcome. The idea of focusing on lifestyle changes is that your success is not tied to arbitrary targets.

Let’s say that you set a goal to lose twenty pounds in four months. As you pursue this goal, you start exercising 4 days a week, eating more vegetables, and limiting desserts. After four months of these lifestyle changes, you step on the scale and you’ve lost fifteen pounds.

Did you achieve your goal of losing twenty pounds? Noop. You’re five pounds short. Damn! Now you feel like shit because you failed to meet your goal. 😞 But what if your goal was to become a healthier person? Did you achieve that goal? Hell yeah ya did!

Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. True behavior change is the product of small, incremental changes compounded over time. We tend to dismiss the effectiveness of small actions because they don’t make an immediate visible impact. But once small habits are solidified into your daily life, you’ll be a stronger version of you.