We’ve all seen the memes:
“I’ve cracked the code: Run for twenty minutes a day, and for every day you skip, tack it onto the next. It works like a charm; tomorrow I’m running for seven years!”
Coaches, success authors, and podcast hosts have been discussing how to make a desired outcome attainable by turning it into a lifestyle. When we have our eye on the goal, but we don’t have a plan for how to get there, what are the chances we will arrive?
What about the crash diets, intensive bootcamps, or obsessive weeks of productivity, followed inevitably by a relapse, regression, or burnout?
A twelve-week restrictive diet that keeps you hungry, moody, and unable to sleep might reveal your abs, but will you be able to keep them once you see them? If that’s what it took for them to show up, that is likely what it will take to maintain them.
Cramming for two days before exams might allow you to get a decent grade because your short-term memory is good, but will you be able to remember anything the day after the test, or apply the material to your new job?
The goal isn’t the views or total sales by next month; the goal is being the person who provides real, lasting value because of who they are and what they do regularly. That’s the type of person who will garner views and sales, without having the focus on the views and sales.
Leaders of all kinds have recognized our tendency to be manic in the short term to achieve our goals more quickly, but then revert to whatever our habits have been for the prior few years. The short term all-in perspective has been called being “goal oriented,” which sounds noble, but if it doesn’t take into account a long term lifestyle, the goal will slip away the moment it is attained.
This principle of a sustainable process also bears relevance in arenas such as:
finances (if you’ve foregone everything you enjoy for three months to pay off debt or save up a certain dollar amount, you’ll probably get back into debt as the lashback effect of being “allowed” to spend money again kicks in),
relationships (if we pressure ourselves and our partner to spend all our time together, if we think they are responsible for all of our emotional needs, and because we have a strict and specific ideal image of what intimacy looks like, we suffocate the relationship and ignore both of our personalities and callings in favour of attempting to mould ourselves into that “ideal,” we begin to resent each other)
What’s the alternative, if short-term deprivation and hyper-disciplined fixation doesn’t bring results that last?
Authors such as Alex Hormozi, Ben Bergeron, and James clear identify one key component in creating a life in which results will find you:
Tell yourself “I’m the type of person that…..”
“I’m a healthy person, what would a healthy person do right now?”
“I’m a writer. A writer writes.”
“I’m an athlete. Would an athlete get up, go, push for an extra rep, or stay cozy at home for days on end?”
By telling ourselves who we are, we can drop shame-based pressure. Examples of pressure include the need to impress, fancy explanations for curious bystanders, or the internal dialogues of “I should…”, “I need to have this done by next week!” and “I’ll only enjoy my trip if my abs show up by then,” we can iteratively by degrees add in the actions that bring us toward our goals, and allow the counterproductive habits to fall away, one by one.
This requires the ingredient of time.
When we lock onto a goal, we also need to ask ourselves if we’re willing to do what it takes to make that goal happen. Are we willing to commit to the process for longer than that 12-week plan we bought?
What if we aren’t sure, but we know we want to be closer to that goal? What if we aren’t sure exactly what that goal will require of us, so we can’t really put a timeframe on it?
What if we don’t know precisely what we want, after all? What if the ideal images of bodies, bank accounts, and relationships were incepted into our minds by the movies and our mothers, and we’ve become so sure of what we want that we won’t even accept something better when it comes along?
God said that “without a vision, the people perish.” However, have we ever noticed that the visions he gave people were usually poetic and a little vague, followed by specific step-by-step instructions? He told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, but he didn’t tell him ahead of time how that would happen, nor who his offspring would be.
Additionally, he pulled an epic version of “I’m the type of person that” psychology shift: he changed Abraham’s name to Abram (father of nations), so that every time Abram’s name was uttered, he would remember who he was, and the direction he was going for: fatherhood. There was a vague vision with a definite direction, and God only revealed what he was to do one step at a time. God worked first on evolving Abraham into the type of person that could hold and manage the manifested promises, through obstacles and sacrifices, movements away from the comfortable familiar. There was a becoming before there was a receiving.
A key concept in the Baghavad Gita is that “we are not entitled to the fruits of our labours; only the labours themselves.”
In our culture, our attention span is fried, dopamine is accessible with the tap of a finger, and success is defined by measurable outcome, so we have forgotten that there is an inherent satisfaction in allowing life to unfold step by step, taking action moment by moment, giving life what it asks of you in each interaction, today. That's faithful. That’s the becoming.
However, each and every action has a direction. We need a vision, but it need not be an inflexible blueprint of specific timelines and circumstances.
The first step is know yourself. What are you good at, what do you love? What brings you to life, and what opportunities are calling to you? Which lofty ideals, indeed, appealed to you repeatedly since you were young? What do those things feel like, over and above what they might present as?
Once we really accept that our individuality is a gift, we can drop the pressure of external expectations, and begin to move in the direction of these aspirations and skills, block time to allow creative inspiration to come to us, and decide whether it’s the gym or the driving range we are going to today.
There does, indeed, need to be a pull toward a certain direction, and while we hold that trajectory, we can look down at our feet, be where they are, turn them slightly in the direction of the goal, and do something today that brings us that way.
It can be a much more gentle process than we originally thought, in this culture of hurry.
We can hold the emotion of the vision, know what we love, and the more, without forcing anything, that we act in accordance with the type of person who could attain it, the more we become those people, which allows circumstances to dovetail into your trajectory, adding momentum toward the goal.
If we hold the goal too tightly, we don't recognize where we have already attained the goals. We miss the nudges where we are today, the opportunities, signs and signals that cumulatively facilitate forward movement. Only by taking a step in the direction of our desire can circumstances conspire to propel us into it.
Pick the destination softly. Focus on the direction diligently.
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