Hello Foundations Families and Friends,
This week’s growth mindset quote is…
Motivation is not the only ingredient in accomplishing a goal. Achieving your goals requires three things – motivation to get started, discipline to persevere, and grace to stay on track.
According to a 2021 study reported by Forbes, nearly 80% of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions by February. That means that 8 out of 10 people who feel motivated enough to set a goal will abandon that goal within a one month period of time. Why?
In all likelihood, all of those people started out feeling motivated – they got pumped up watching inspirational videos, they read their growth mindset books, they posted their favorite quote or verse on their bathroom mirror, and they planned a special reward for themself for when they achieved their goal. So what went wrong?
In the end, all of that initial motivation was not enough because they were not prepared to follow through with the other two things required to achieve their goal.
Achieving a goal requires 3 things:
- #1 Motivation – This is the part that helps you feel like trying and gets you started.
- Motivation is a critical component in achieving our goals. When establishing a goal, surround yourself with daily input – videos, books, quotes, friends – that remind you why you are doing what you are doing, and remind you that you are capable of reaching your goal.
- #2 Discipline – This is the part that keeps you going when you don’t feel like trying.
- Establish a plan for how you will move forward when you don’t feel like moving forward. The fact is, in order to achieve your goal you will have to do things that you don’t feel like doing. You will have to persevere when you feel tired, emotionally burnt out, you start to question if the goal is even possible, you feel like you’re missing out on what your friends are doing, or you feel discouraged by negative feedback you are hearing from others. Discipline is one of the most important ingredients in achieving a goal because it is not emotion based, it is the logical voice inside your head that tells you to keep going regardless of how motivated you feel.
- #3 Grace – This is the part that gets you back on track when you failed at trying.
- When working toward a goal, most people experience “the dip” – a day, a week, maybe even a month, when their emotions get the best of them. This is when that critical self-talk really kicks in, insisting that you are a failure, that you’ll never reach your goals, that you’re a quitter, you’ll always be this, you’ll never be that, blah, blah, blah. The combo of giving up on the goal and the negative self-talk takes a blow to your self-confidence, which makes it extra hard to get back on track. But here’s the thing… just because you got off course does not mean you have to abandon the goal! Give yourself grace by rejecting the negative self-talk, accept that you took a temporary detour, and get right back on track. Who cares if the road that led to your dream was filled with temporary detours, as long as you reach your dream.
It’s true that change, growth, and doing great things is hard work – achieving our goals is a battle – but I want to remind you that YOU ARE WORTH THE BATTLE. Don’t give up!