I thought it was just me. I thought I was part of an elite few holding this distinction of being maybe a little motivationally challenged. I thought I was the only one who needed a nudge and some guidance on not only getting those daily, annoying tasks done, but also on those larger goals and dreams we all have. But, based on feedback some of you have given me, I realize that I am not alone.
When I started writing about motivation and working towards goals, I had no idea this would morph into a series. But here we are.
Here is where we have been:
- Motivation follows action
- Just do something, anything, even if it is just for 5 minutes
- Start the Big Thing by just doing the Small First Thing
We have touched on the idea that it won’t do to just think about, and learn about, our goal, but that we must do the very first, little thing in order to get started. And we also acknowledged that not all seasons of life allow for intense devotion to these goals and hobbies.
But, if we are ready, and we have now pushed off from the dock, hurray!!!
We’ve set sail! Now what?
Hopefully we now have a little spark of joy from taking that first, tiny step, and we can use this momentum to begin doing those next tasks. Here are the last three concepts I want to talk about over the next 2 posts:
Breaking it down and doing it
Setting up our environment for success
Commitment and evaluation
Break it down into smaller, doable steps, and take a critical look at how we spend our time.
This is where we evaluate our daily life and make some changes as necessary. This concept works for the bigger things, like starting a business, as well as fitting the smaller hobbies, like painting, into our lives.
Remember our Core Values? When a ship is headed for a lighthouse on the harbor, it must constantly make tiny course corrections in order to stay on the right azimuth.
What we do with those micro opportunities of time will determine our course and eventual destination.
But sometimes the goal is too broad, and we don’t actually know what to do next. So we instinctively grab our phone and start scrolling, distracting our brains, and missing those little windows of time to inch towards our goal.
If we focus in and delineate these tasks into actionable steps, we have something concrete to grab ahold of when those opportunities arise, and we actually make some progress.
Then we have to do them! But you already know how to do that from our 1st and 2nd posts: Just start them for 5 minutes, and do something, anything, to get started.
Set up your environment to make it easy to work on your goal or hobby.
This is a big one that we often don’t consider. We cannot make progress if we have to jump through a bunch of hoops every time we want to work on our actionable list, or if it makes a huge mess in our home.
We have to set aside a space that is easily accessible (a corner? A basket? A folder even?) that we can grab at a moment’s notice.
When I wanted to paint more in my life, it was very frustrating because I had to get out the paint and squirt colors onto a plate or palette. But what if I didn’t use all the colors and they dried out and were wasted? Then I had to fill a jar with water, get out my canvas or piece of wood…
…and by the time I was ready to paint, I didn’t know what I wanted to create.
So then I would look at Instagram videos of other people painting, or scroll through my photos, or stare out the window. And, by the time I was ready to start something, the window of opportunity was over, I had made a big mess, my paints were drying out, and I had to start dinner or go to work.
I had to find a practical solution to this problem.
I put together a basket with a jar for water, my most commonly used brushes, a disposable paper palette pad, and a little paint storage box with little squares in it it to hold each color of paint.
As far as getting ideas of what to paint, I made a little jar with ideas on slips of paper from which I can pull random prompts to get me started.
This solution has been a game changer for me. Now it is all set up so that I am able to grab those little time increments in the day to paint.
No matter what your space, try to find a practical setup that will minimize your prep time so you can jump right in and take advantage of those micro moments.
Setting up your environment for success will help you get off of your stupid phone and start doing the thing you love to do and becoming the person you want to be.
Little warning bell going off, though: If you are like me, you might get stalled here if you get too deep into the weeds of devising a perfect system.
I was very tempted to spend hours researching the best type of box in which to store my paints, reading painting blogs, and watching videos of other people’s setups.
Be careful not to get too sidetracked. Find something that could maybe work, give it a try, and then you are allowed to tweak things as you go. The idea here is to get moving, not to get caught in the minutiae of planning!
For personal hobbies, like painting and gardening, just grabbing moments of time and optimizing the environment is sufficient. It is often just the push we need to move forward.
But for the “Big Things,” like starting a business or getting a degree, we do need to consider our level of commitment and desire. I am going to talk in one of my next posts about the time I did actually accomplish The Thing and decided it actually was not for me, and another time I did another Thing, and am still doing it and loving it.
I hope you are able to use some of these ideas that have helped me. Maybe you can comment about hacks you have discovered that help you fit in those things you like to do into your busy life, and we can learn from your experience!
This came at an interesting time for me in my life. Thank you!
Oh, that’s cool to hear!