Achieving Big Goals

As I write this article, I have a strong sense of accomplishment and sense of pride (hopefully I am not due for a fall). They reason for this is because the writing of this article means that I have finished a very large goal: one that has taken me over half a year to complete. This being to write 100 articles on the medium.com platform.

One of the reasons why this is quite an accomplishment for me is because throughout most of my life, I (like many others) have found it very easy to start doing things but very hard to actually finish things off. My life is littered with incomplete goals and projects; I can’t dare count the number of Blogs that I have started in my life which are now somewhere out there in the cyberspace of the internet. And the most posts which any of these blogs has is about 16; hardly not enough to really develop any real traction.

In this article we would be taking a look at why most of us find it easier to start off projects instead of complete them as well as why being able to complete what you set out to do is the biggest indicator of life success.

So to begin:

The vast majority of us are very good at setting goals and starting new projects. When the calendar strikes 1st January, a large percentage of us tend to have a list of goals for the new year; aka resolutions. Most of these goals are based around getting a new job (or asking our bosses for a pay rise), physically getting into shape or working on our social/love life's.

Yet by the end of the first week of the new year, nearly everyone who has set those new years resolutions has pretty much all but forgotten them. Yet why is this? Why are most of us so good at starting stuff but terrible at finishing off what we started?

Well one argument could be that the vast majority of people are lazy; most people just don’t have the willpower to actually bring into fruition that which they want to achieve. Yet this argument falls flat when you realise that most people who constantly fail to complete their New Year’s Resolutions are hard workers; working hard in their jobs and holding down jobs whilst being there for their families.

So if it isn’t motivation, what could it possibly be? Well I believe there isn’t one but a few reasons why most of us struggle to finish off big goals or projects, this being;

You didn’t misread what you just wrote, the correlation between motivation and achievement is a weak one at best. I say this because what exactly is motivation? Well essentially it is a drive or desire to get something done; i.e. ‘he sure was motivated to finish his assignment and get it in before the end of the day.’

While feeling motivated is certainly a good thing to experience in order to get you moving towards doing something, like all emotions, the feeling of motivation is fleeting at best. Hence whilst it can be beneficial to use motivation as a way to get things done, don’t expect to call upon it to help you through completing the big goals and projects in your life.

If you have read my other articles, you may have an idea as to what I am going to say is the way to complete what you set out to accomplish. But if you haven’t as yet, well before we uncover what is the secret to finishing off big goals, we should first take a look at the reason mentioned. This being that often when you are at the start (threshold) of achieving some very large goal or project, the feeling which one can get is like being given a blank piece of paper and told to create something!

In other words, our brains get filled with creativity and excitement at the prospect that we have some large, new fresh work to do which would ultimately lead to us empowering or bettering ourselves in the process. Similar to the feeling you get when you are starting off on a long journey towards something which you are looking forward to attaining!

Yet like most long journeys, after a while travelling the initial excitement that you are off on your way depletes, but yet you still have to carry on. Hence why do you think there is such a market for travel games like ‘Travel Monopoly’ or ‘Travel Trivia Pursuit’ to name but a few!

And with working towards some large goal, the initial excitement and burst of motivation soon wears off. And when it does, doing whatever needs to be done begins to become harder, as you are using pure willpower instead of that feeling of motivation to move you along. This is why so many people (myself included) tend to quit and decide to focus on starting some new exciting goal or project.

There is even a name for this way of being, Shiny Object Syndrome.’ For like a kitten that is attracted to shiny objects, it soon becomes bored with that object and instead decides to focus on the next shiny object!

So what is the secret to ploughing on through these big goals and accomplishing them? Well the answer is to chunk the work that needs to be done into smaller steps, and then focus only on each immediate step that you are on, etc. till it is done. And of course you need to reward yourself with small rewards along the way.

As someone who struggles with concentration issues, I have found this methodology to be one of the few ways that I can actually see goals and projects through to completion. For you see if you try the old willpower way, well you’d need to have unrealistic superhuman levels of willpower to actually accomplish it. And as we have seen, to rely on that feeling of motivation to see us through all the way to accomplishing our goals is not feasible; as it would be like trying to laugh your way through a 3 year degree course!

So if there are any lessons that you can take from achieving large goals. It is to decide what exactly it is that you want to achieve, plan how you are going to get it. And above all else, chunk down what you need to do into easily manageable steps; for trust me when I say that the initial surge of motivation and excitement will soon fade. And when it does, you’d be glad you have a methodology to stick to your plans to achieve the success you deserve!

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