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I used to have a lot of unfinished business. A couple of years ago, I started my own blog, but I wasn’t able to maintain it because I was working full-time as well. This year, I promised myself that I would exercise at least 3x a week. I got off to a good start but holidays, events and birthdays made me lose my momentum. Last Saturday, I told myself that I’m going to do a general cleaning of the house. After de-cluttering my room, I got tired and decided to resume the following day. However, as I was about to begin my mission, my friend called me on skype and we had the chat of our lifetime.
So, what’s the moral of the story? Excuses, lack of commitment, laziness, and many other distractions are sucking out all the optimism and energy we had when we started out our journey. And we have to find ways to stop it ladies.
To stay on track with your goals and get what you want, it’s not enough to just have dreams and ambitions. It is also important to mentally prepare yourself for the unavoidable roadblocks and unexpected circumstances that you will encounter along the way.
Here are 4 ways to strengthen you willpower and become more persistent in pursuing your goals.
Have a Bigger Purpose Outside Of Yourself
Letting go of self-interest can help you define and integrate your life. When you have a purpose that is not fueled by your ego, it is much easier to establish your own values, know who you are inside and your secret desires, and most importantly, be aware of your capacity to love and to be of help to others.
In the piece “11 Nontraditional Activities Guaranteed to Bring You and Your SO Closer Together,” writer Blair Thill explains the importance of growing your ability to love and to be open and vulnerable to greatly benefit you in life and future relationships.
So, make an effort to shift from a self-centered goal to a bigger purpose and serve something larger than your self-interest. Always think of your relationships and those you love, how your actions will affect them and how it will make them feel.
Get Your Stress Under Control
It’s more difficult to motivate yourself when you are stressed, when you have a lot of things going in on in your mind and when you are not feeling good. Keeping your concentration and focus becomes twice as hard when you’re scared, worried, disturbed or uncertain.
The thing is, although stress is an inevitable part of life and eliminating it totally is next to an impossibility, you can still get it under control and bring more calm to your everyday life by implementing simple habits, mindsets and some schedule changes.
Writer Paige Smith shares powerful yet simple ways to reduce stress and lead a less hectic life. Here are some of my favorites:
• Focus on task progress and not on completion
• De-clutter the part of your home or office that’s bothering you most.
• No matter how chaotic your schedule is, carve out time to connect with people who make you happiest to relieve your stress and gain outside perspective.
• Make sleep non-negotiable.
• Learn to say NO whenever necessary to manage your time better and to earn more freedom to say YES to things that really matter.
Adopt a Mindset of Growth
Ditch your fixed mindset so that you can continue to grow and improve. When you think that you can’t do anything about your situation or change your life around, you’ll get stuck in a negative spiral and sabotage yourself.
Having a growth mindset or believing that you can achieve more through hardwork, strategies, and help from others makes you feel more empowered and committed in accomplishing your goals.
Money, for instance, can be really elusive at times. But when you adopt a mindset of growth, you will try to look at things from a different perspective. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you’ll make an effort to find out what it loves and needs to thrive in your life.
Inspire Others to Be Their Best
American statesman and retired general Colin Powell once said, “Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty and persistence.” The attitude necessary for you to attain your goals is the same attitude that a great leader must possess. Adopting a leader’s mindset or inspiring others to make a difference can also help you retain information relevant to improve yourself and achieve success.
No matter what you are or what you do, there is a leader in you. All you have to do is embrace it, live your values, understand what makes you – YOU, and commit yourself to a lifelong learning process .
Ladies, make a positive difference today. Finish what you’ve started. Be great in setting your goals but be greater in achieving them.
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