Summary

The article discusses the strategy of setting small, achievable goals to maintain motivation and track progress towards long-term aspirations, emphasizing the importance of consistency and self-awareness.

Abstract

The author reflects on their journey of transforming long-term goal setting into a series of short-term achievements, drawing from personal experiences with writing and self-improvement. Initially, the author found it challenging to measure progress towards distant goals, leading to the adoption of a checkpoint system. This approach involves celebrating small victories to build confidence and maintain momentum. The author applied this methodology to writing, committing to a daily blog post since the start of a total lockdown in India. After reaching a 21-day writing streak, the author plans to continue this practice, aiming for a new target of 100 days, with the belief that consistent effort and patience are key to success. The article is part of a series that explores the benefits of writing for self-improvement and the psychological impact of maintaining a writing streak.

Opinions

The author believes that defining success is highly subjective and that one must have a clear vision of what success looks like in a particular field to know if it has been achieved.
The author emphasizes that long-term goals should be adaptable and evolve with time as one gains more realistic perspectives through learning experiences.
Setting and achieving small goals is seen as a way to naturally motivate oneself and trust in the process of reaching larger objectives.
The author values the insights of high-performance coaches but also advocates for personal experimentation and the benefits of writing about one's own experiences for personal growth.
Consistency and patience are considered essential qualities for achieving one's goals, with a favorite quote by Jim Rohn underscoring the choice between finding a way or an excuse based on one's determination.
The author is currently debating whether to aim for a 50-day or 100-day writing target, ultimately deciding on the more ambitious goal as a challenge to their creative abilities.
Reflecting on the past through written reflections is described as a relief for the brain and a valuable tool for self-discovery and learning.

Small Achievements To Crush Long Term Goals

Changing Definition of Goal Setting

Since I started preparing for engineering exams, I always had long term goals in mind, like get into a great college, get a good job, be healthy, have meaningful but selective relationships. This mindset carried to personal goals leading to difficulty in visualising the long term ones, then it even became harder to track the progress.

Defining success is highly subjective. Unless we don’t know what it looks like to be successful in a particular field, we will never know if we are there yet. How will you know you have reached the goal if you don’t know what the goal looks like? Long term perception of goal will change with time as learning experiences teach us to set more realistic and practical targets.

Long Term and Short Term

Long term goal setting was becoming harder to track with time. I was unable to measure my progress. I wanted to do it with least overthinking. I wanted this to come naturally.

That’s when I decided to divide my learning path into checkpoints. Small achievements help build confidence. They show that we are going in the right direction. Speed, momentum and consistency strengthen with time. Directed actions help with that. Celebrating small achievement builds trust in the process which motivates you to keep going, knowing that time will show the right results if we avoid distraction while sticking to our path.

Applying The New Definition Everywhere

Whenever you want to start a new habit or achieve a long term, you need to have a tracking system that will highlight your positive achievements to fuel you with natural motivation. Since 25th March, day 1 of total India lockdown, a friend suggested me to write my articles instead of reading ones by the high-performance coaches.

No doubt I still read their articles. Because they are master in this field and know everything about self-improvement to transform one’s life. When I felt the need to apply the learning in practice while documenting the progress, I trusted my friend’s approach and searched a lot about the benefits of writing about oneself. The one that stuck with me is the realisation of self-evolution. Since this journaling is about personal life experiences, all the benefits are highly inclined towards personal growth.

In the starting few days, I was nervous in hitting the “publish” and I used to do it around 23:50 hours every day and post wherever I thought my articles would get attention. Then I thought of applying the “short-achievements” psychology here too when setting a 21-day target to examine the efficiency.

New Achievement, New Target

Today is day 21 of my writing streak. It is a big achievement for a person who used to write 2 blogs in one year and now goes on to write one blog every day. This contrast is hard to believe. So is the magic of hard work and trusting the process.

You have to be patient. You have to be consistent. Just being consistent with what matters to you sets everything in place and I live by this favourite quote that defines me in every breath.

If You Really Want To Do Something, You’ll Find A Way. If You Don’t, You’ll Find An Excuse. - Jim Rohn

I wanted to increase self-awareness by prioritising writing to channel my thoughts for positive energy every day. Now that I have had 21 days of continuous commitment with it, I want to take it to the next level.

I am confused about whether to set day 50 or 100 as the new target. Let’s give an ambitious challenge to the creative muscles here. It is 100. The next target is day 100. I have visualised the achievement and know what it will look like when I reach that day.

I will have 122 blogs in my name. That makes me happy. It will even push me to set a higher target which I will plan on day 100. But till then, consistency is the sole driver in this writing journey of self-improvement.

The Show Must Go On

This article belongs to a series of articles I am publishing in this 21-day streak. This is the 21st one in the line-up. To read the remaining ones, navigate to the end of the first article where you will find references for all the articles. The first article talks about the logic I am using to maintain my writing habit and this one tells how I realised the efficiency of the streak mentality in practice by discussing it’s effects on controlling the happiness hormones.

Starting from the next blog, I plan to have a method to record the history till day 100. This journey is teaching a lot about myself while purifying my thoughts on the way. It is such a relief for the brain knowing that your thoughts are out there in words. Reflection is just a click away. My past learnings are just a click away.

So for the next 79 articles starting tomorrow, I will have a reference list in the next blog. That will grow until it has 79 entries.

~ Sanjeev