B and I hiking yesterday.
Goals are great. They align you with the accomplishments you want in life. It's always fun to set goals, make the plans, and get to work. But after a while, you'll start to lose connection with what you are working towards. It just happens.
Here are 3 things I do when I start to feel the passion slip.
Get connected to the why behind the goal.
There was a reason you decided to go after this goal to begin with. What was it? Why is the most powerful of the 5 W's. It gets to the motivation, the stuff below the surface that is actually meaningful.
Envision your goals complete.
This one is my favorite. Get out a piece of paper and a pen and literally write out what a day looks like once your goals are achieved. I write mine like a narrative. For example, I have a goal to spend a couple months next summer traveling the country in a camper with my family. So I wrote this...
The sun pours in through window up and wakes me. B is asleep next to me. She looks so beautiful first thing in the morning. I carefully move past her and out of the bedroom of the camper. B and L are still passed out in the bunks. I quietly slip outside. The air is crisp and cool when it hits my skin. I take a deep breath holding the cold air in my lungs for a minute before slowly letting it escape through my nostrils. The lake is so still this early in the morning. I walk over to the fire pit to get it going for breakfast. We have a kitchen in the camper, but there is something about eggs and bacon in a skillet over an open fire. I hear H stirring in the tent. He is 12 now and prefers the privacy of a separate space. Too bad the deal came with a little bother attached. He and W hear me outside and come out of their tent, W rubbing the sleep from his eyes. H brings me a couple of logs for the fire. I let him take over and go back into the camper to grab the supplies and my iPad. Today is a school day and a work day...
You get the picture. Go into detail and put yourself in the experience. Feel what it feels like and smells like. Where are you. What do you see? What does it look like?
Reflect on how far you've come.
Dwelling on the gap where you are now and where you want to be will demotivate you if you let it. The easiest way to combat this is to check out how far you've come. Where were you when you started? Where are you now? Relive the feelings you had at each major milestone. You will be proud of your hard work and even more motivated to keep going.
That's what I have? What works for you? Let me know in the comments.