Overcoming The Desire To Give Up Your Dreams
What I do when failure is on my radar.
When you start something new, it’s exciting. Or nerve-wracking. Either way, change does not go unnoticed. Going out of your comfort zone, especially voluntarily, is daunting but exhilarating at the same time.
You decide you’re going to focus on a particular goal. You wake up the first day pumped, motivated, and eager to get started. You have high hopes and you get to work straight away, and you start off giving 110% of yourself.
But there comes a time when the fire dies out. You might start to doubt yourself. You might not get the results you desire quickly enough, or you might get discouraging feedback. The motivation cannot keep going on its own, and it’s now up to you to force it into yourself again. Ugh, but it’s exhausting.
My big change, a year ago, was to decide to write every day and to build up a following. I have had some successes and reached a lot of milestones for sure. I have felt excited, angry, sad, happy, and inspired. Most of all, all those emotions have motivated me to keep on writing.
But naturally, I have had moments of self-doubt. And this is reflected in the quality of my work and my overall attitude towards the rest of my life. Feeling unmotivated in one area of your life has an impact on the rest of you. For me, it drains me of my energy and I tend to get snappy or irritable.
So how are we supposed to keep that momentum going? How are we supposed to keep working hard and be forcibly happy about working towards our goals if those feelings of desire for the big result are no longer at the front of our minds, edging us on?
Well, that’s what I’ve been exploring for myself, and here is what I have found. Let’s dig in.
“Commitment in the face of conflict produces character.” — Unknown
Are You An Achiever or A Chaser?
We can be motivated by the journey of working on goals as well as the results that they will bring. Some are driven more by one than the other.
I forever chase. As well as having the utmost desire to write a successful self-help book and it become a bestseller, my life will not stop there. I know that after I take pleasure in achieving that goal, I’ll be working on the next project. I know that my achievements will help me work towards other goals, such as becoming a public speaker.
A lot of people are like me in that respect. We have been taught by society and our first world environment to keep wanting and to keep chasing, after all.
The Harvard Business Review says, in its article Decisions and Desire, that you can base your goal setting on how you are motivated. For example,
“A manager who shows a preference for the hunt might, for instance, be well served by incentives that increase his motivation to reach goals rather than simply chase them.”
Working and chasing those goals is pleasurable and it keeps you in the present too. That’s why, as well as chasing my goal to be an author of a bestselling book, I write on Medium. I have other, smaller, more achievable goals. Daily, weekly, monthly. Some I make on the spot and work on right away, some are parenting-related and take time to implement. Some are quite mundane but bring pleasure nonetheless, such as decluttering my office desk. By knowing what I take pleasure in, I can alter my own incentives and motivate myself to work hard and achieve those goals – by enjoying the chase.
If you’re an achiever, your pleasure can come from imagining the results of reaching your goals. Practising visualisation has been proven time and time again that to be extremely powerful.
In an article, New To Visualization? Here Are 5 Steps To Get You Started, by Forbes magazine describes one of 5 powerful steps to visualisation like this,
“Once you are ready, you can take a moment to start envisioning the actual outcome. Start to imagine the sights, the sounds, the smells and even the taste of achieving what you want. As you go along, don’t forget to feel the emotions you would feel, as if this “life” was your reality now.
Ask yourself: What would I feel if all my visualizations came true?”
I have a fake £5,000 cheque stuck to the bottom of my screen because that is my monthly income goal. I have my goals written down in a notepad that I keep on my desk and I look at it every day. Sometimes, I rewrite them, tick some off, and add more. And I’m buzzing with excitement every time I imagine achieving them all.
Reminding yourself of everything you have come to achieve so far is another great way to help you appreciate and motivate yourself to strive for more. When you are filled with gratitude for the abundance in your life, you will attract more of it.
Are you an achiever or a chaser? What do you take pleasure in more? Once you work this out, you can determine how you go about working towards and achieving your goals.
Success Is Reliant On You and You Alone
This is a harsh truth with a twist.
Nobody is going to feel motivated for you. Yes, coaches and loved ones can push you, but none of it lasts. You have to rely on yourself unconditionally.
And one thing I have learned is that breaking promises to yourself is like abandoning your child. You have to ask yourself what your younger self will feel like if they knew you now and they saw you stop work for something you really wanted. I know my teenager self would be pretty mad if I even considered giving up all my hard work now. And I don’t want to get on the wrong side of her, she is fiery as hell.
You may already feel like you have failed yourself in the past and it can be difficult to turn that around. But it’s possible. And it starts by simply working on what you really want. I will come to the method of this later.
The flip side to relying on your sole self to succeed?
Nobody else controls your success. Your boss’ no means nada. Your bad company’s no’s mean zero. Yes, exterior forces can make your goals a bit more difficult to attain, but remember that everyone has obstacles. It is how you face them that matters more.
So, when that self-doubt creeps up, ask yourself why you should trust this new view more than the more determined attitude from a week or a month ago.
By questioning your current state of mind and actively changing your perspective again, you could be resetting that motivation to carry on.
In a study reported in dataquest.io where different methods were used to help achieve goals, researchers found that these were the most effective.
— Focusing on the positive consequences of completing the task
— Controlling emotions
This is further proof that success is tied to you as an individual rather than anything else exterior to yourself. When we realise that we control our success by controlling ourselves, we can control our perspective of things and our emotions.
See obstacles as opportunities. See them as lessons or stepping stones that only take you closer to your desired results. When you start seeing things with a more optimistic lens, you will alter your future.
“Obstacles are detours in the right direction” — Gabby Bernstein
Small Wins Add Up Quickly
Sometimes, your goals seem out of reach because they are too broad. Your goals should be detailed enough and broken down into smaller, more achievable goals you can work on every single day.
This would enable you to track your own progress. So if you’re naturally looking back at how you could improve things, you could be fair to yourself and look back and make a big deal out of your small wins, too.
My goal is to write every single day. Sometimes I write more than others. Sometimes, I sit in front of my computer and barely get a sentence in — but if I really am stuck for inspiration, I just write about gibberish. That almost always inspires a crazy train of thought that turns into an article.
Today was one of those days. I spent half an hour not knowing what to write about and doubting my choice to write. Later on, when my son and I were at a shop, a kind member of staff gave my son a sticker and it made his day. That made my day. It was a reminder that people are generally kind and it was heartwarming.
Think that’s not connected to anything? Think again.
When you appreciate the small things, they’ll keep coming. I had a great day from that moment onwards. It made me write about it, and the train of thought I had from there inspired the rest of this article.
You may not be where you want to be, but there is something good in where you are now that may seem completely unrelated, but it is. Because your entire life is connected, there is no way that it cannot be.
Take the small wins, no matter how deliberate or opportune they are, and tie them to the areas you want to improve.
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” — Buddha
Takeaway
“Keep calm and carry on.”
This was originally a motivational poster created by the British government in 1939 in preparation for WWII. It has since been used as a slogan and adapted thousands of times.
It is a well-known quote that I think really fits here. Most of the time, when we think about giving something up, it is because we are scared or doubtful. But restoring calmness helps to objectify our thinking and rationalise our choices.
I will tell you that most successful people in this world were goddamn determined to make it, never giving up their dreams. They probably panicked, but they probably resisted the temptation to give up — by keeping calm and carrying on.
Work out what drives and motivates you. Give yourself incentives and rewards. Remind yourself every single day of why you are working on your goals. Remember what you really want and don’t do anything that conflicts with it. And if you have a tough day, move on swiftly without feeling knocked back.
Remember that nobody but you can ever have your best interests at heart. It is up to you to rely on yourself. Yes, people and situations will create obstacles as much as they will create opportunities — it is up to you to be selective of what you take from each.
Visualise and plan your goals in as much detail as you can, and look for all the wins, no matter how small they are.
Most importantly, remember you are just as worthy as the next person, and you deserve success as much as everyone else.
Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about self-love and motherhood. See more work like this.
Follow her on Twitter.
