1. Set a goal and visualize it down to the smallest detail
Meditate on the outcome you want. See it, feel it and hear the sounds that accompany the end result. Athletes use this technique before a game (or race), they visualise their performance ahead of time, right down to the smell of the sweat dripping down their face as they cross the finish line.
2. Make a list of all the reasons you want to accomplish your goal
In our fast, distracting and busy world, it’s easy to get thrown off course so you need to ground yourself in your goal. For extra “success insurance,” write your list with a pen (don't sit infront of your laptop or use your phone to type it out!). Studies show that when you write by hand you engage your brain more actively in the process while typing is an automatic function that involves merely selecting letters causing less of a mental connection to what you're writing out.
3. Break it down into smaller pieces and set intermediary goals and rewards
Stress is often caused when we have a huge task to accomplish or a seemingly impossible number of things to complete. If you do take on the entire project you will likely become overwhelmed and fail to complete it. The easiest way to prevent becoming overwhelmed is to chip away at a project. Break it down into the smallest realistic steps you possibally can and only do one at a time. Neuroscience tells us that each small success triggers the brain’s reward center, and releases the feel-good chemical, dopamine.
4. Have a strategy, but be prepared to improvise
If you don't succeed the first time, try and try again. :)
5. Get help when you need it
It doesn’t necessarily take an entire village and even if you could accomplish your goal alone, there’s innate value in sharing your plan. Publicising what you intend to do sends a strong message to everyone and, more significantly, to your subconscious mind, which can occasionally disrupt your best efforts to make things work. Also, we frequently overemphasize our abilities. On the other hand you must be highly selective about who you tell and ask for help.
6. Determine how you will deal with lack of motivation before it arrives
This isn’t pessimistic thinking. On the contrary! It’s (pretty much) unavoidable that at some point along the way you will need a little boost. When that happens, it really helps to think of what others have suffered to reach their targets and to quash even the beginning of a pity party. If you can’t think of anyone specific who’s been through a hard time you could think of the Holocaust survivors, they had to endure so much more than most of us could imagine.
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