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Small daily improvements lead to massive success
It’s the start of another year and everyone (or almost everyone) has a few goals/new year’s resolutions that they will like to achieve. But more often than not, we end up falling short of our goals. Every year it’s the same old story. We start the year with so much enthusiasm and we are ready to get to work and before January is over we are tired, overwhelmed, or simply just forget about our goals and decide to go with the flow. This has happened to me time and time again and while I am yet to figure out the right approach to ensure that I hit all or most of my goals, I’ve come up with an idea that will allow me to do better this year than I have done in other years.
The idea is to focus on my growth instead of focusing on my goals. This was a lesson I learned in 2021. At the start of the year, I had very lofty (crazy is actually a better term) goals. I was determined and very passionate then life just started happening and I saw myself drifting farther and farther away from my goals. But the more I drifted away from my initial goals the more I realized I was actually improving and learning from places that I did not consciously look to for improvement.
That is why this year, I will be focusing on my growth and looking for ways to just become a little bit better in the most important areas of my life. Here are some of the reasons why I have taken this decision
Have you ever set goals and completely forgotten about them? Trust me, we’ve all been there. We are excited to set new goals, we write them down, we dream about them for a few days then we forget about them until the next time we stumble on the piece of paper that contains our goals. We spend so much time writing our goals and figuring out the best plan to achieve them that we forget that merely setting goals don’t get us results.
There is a difference between being in motion and taking action. Setting your goals is being in motion. Taking action on the other hand is the type of behavior that will produce an outcome. Growth is what happens when you’re taking action. You won’t achieve your goals by doing just one thing. Achieving your goals will be the result of taking action multiple times. Your growth is how you keep track of the actions you are taking and if these actions are leading you in the right direction.
Take another look at your goals but this time commit to doing at least one thing every day that brings you a step closer towards achieving that goal. Remember less thinking, more doing.
What I mean by this is that we sometimes set very ‘unrealistic’ goals for ourselves. Well, some people argue that there is nothing like an ‘unrealistic’ goal, instead what we have are ‘unrealistic’ deadlines for achieving them. While some people will say that it is better to set those ‘unrealistic’ goals so that you will be able to push yourself. While I agree with both arguments to an extent the major problem with having said ‘unrealistic’ goals is the pressure that it puts on you.
We are all under pressure to hit very big milestones no thanks in part to social media. Everyone is celebrating their first million and not their first ten thousand. People are unboxing the latest iPhones, not the latest Tecnos’. We all want to make that first million (or 6 figures if we are speaking in dollars), buy the latest iPhone, buy that car, get that apartment.
Depending on where you’re starting from, having big goals like these is counterproductive. Why? Having ‘unrealistic’ goals forces us to take massive action because we think that is how to produce massive success. Massive action = Burnout and then we give up. The truth is massive success is the result of small daily improvements.
Setting simple goals on the other hand means we can easily achieve our goals without really improving at all and that is no good.
We need to strike a balance between ‘simple’ goals and ‘unrealistic’ goals. This is an example of the Goldilocks Rule.
The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
This means to set goals that are neither too hard nor too easy but just right. Big goals are too hard so we end up giving up too soon. Simple goals are too easy so we get bored, we remain stagnant and if care is not taken, we regress.
The next question becomes how do we set goals that are just right for our current abilities. The answer to that question is to make growth our priority instead of our goals.
The idea is to make sure we improve by at least 1% every day. And the way to ensure that you improve daily is by tracking your growth. Initially, it might seem as if you’re not doing enough but you need to understand that these sorts of improvements compound, they don’t add up. So if you can become just 1% better every day, you will be 37 times better at the end of the year. If you can improve by 10% every day, well you do the maths on this one.
It is way easier to get at least 1% better every day. Also seeing your 1% growth every day motivates you to at least show up for yourself. The most effective form of motivation is progress. On days when you don’t feel like doing too much or doing anything at all, you can remind yourself that you only need to give an extra 1%. And everyone can give an extra 1%.
We often tie our happiness to the achievement of our goals whether consciously or unconsciously. We are not happy/satisfied with ourselves until we hit our next target. Your goals force you to delay satisfaction. We go to work and we hit that target but we are still not happy or the happiness doesn’t last. This is because after hitting our target, we shift the goal post again and the next challenge begins. We are constantly pursuing something. In theory, this is not the worst thing in the world but in reality, this makes it difficult for us to be happy in the moment.
Focusing on our growth instead allows us to be happy in the present moment. Knowing that you’re constantly improving even if it is by the smallest of margins should make you happy. Growing regularly allows you to celebrate your small wins and this gives instant satisfaction. Celebrating your small wins means you get to continue on the path that gave you those small wins because what is rewarded is repeated.
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