Miss Your Goal Once, No Problem. Miss Twice and You Invited the Devil.
There is no end to the depth of rationalizations and excuses we'll make to avoid doing things that are outside of our comfort zone or require discipline.
I have a big list of daily habits that help me get ahead in all areas of my life. I've made a commitment to myself that I will not go to sleep before finishing all of my habits.
This is obviously a daily challenge but I'm highly motivated and disciplined and am always willing to accept it and keep moving forward.
The problem starts when I have really challenging days where I'm not able to complete all my goals for one reason or another. It's not that I'm physically unable to complete them it's just that a certain level of comfort has to be taken into account, you can't just suffer like that and expect to love your goals, there needs to be some balance.
So I do a simple trick, if I'll have just one or two things left to accomplish for the day, I'll just leave them blank and skip them and go to sleep. I notice and take note of the reasons why I couldn't finish my task today and try to make corrections to avoid that mistake again.
Where I know the devil waits, is in me missing the same goal twice in a row. I know that if I miss any of my goals for more than 2 days in a row, It'll be enough for me to unconsciously start using rationalizations and my brain will find every reason to think of this daily goal as useless.
Once your brain has kicked in the rationalization mechanism and you find yourself skipping or removing goals on a consistent basis, you're in an accelerating downward spiral towards complete stop and sinking.
Think you're above that shit? Why do you think almost everyone you see, including your successful friends, seem to be fairly stuck in the same place or moving at a snail's pace?
Why do you think you're not doing everything you could be doing at massive action levels? Simple, you're in the loop of rationalizations.
Actually exiting the loop requires a lot of effort, time, and a bit of luck. You need to go back to consistency and start small to build back up that discipline of taking daily action consistently. This is a massive waste of time and energy, of-course there's also the chance that you'll just fall off the deep end and never come back, staying in your little comfort bubble with more than 95% of the population, the odds are against you.
That's why for me, skipping something once if it's really necessary is OK, you have to be flexible in life, anything that's too rigid will break with enough pressure. In contrast, you also don't want to be too "flexible" in life where you have no rigidity, both lose at the end.
Find the sweet spot of what perfect consistency is for you, if you go too hard on the discipline path you'll break, but if you don't have strict rules you'll never be able to generate enough force and inertia to push towards your goals long and fast enough to reach them.
Remember - missing your goal once is fine, once you do it twice you've just invited the devil, and boy does he want your motivation to go to waste. Don't accept that. Be great.
Robby
I have a big list of daily habits that help me get ahead in all areas of my life. I've made a commitment to myself that I will not go to sleep before finishing all of my habits.
This is obviously a daily challenge but I'm highly motivated and disciplined and am always willing to accept it and keep moving forward.
The problem starts when I have really challenging days where I'm not able to complete all my goals for one reason or another. It's not that I'm physically unable to complete them it's just that a certain level of comfort has to be taken into account, you can't just suffer like that and expect to love your goals, there needs to be some balance.
So I do a simple trick, if I'll have just one or two things left to accomplish for the day, I'll just leave them blank and skip them and go to sleep. I notice and take note of the reasons why I couldn't finish my task today and try to make corrections to avoid that mistake again.
Where I know the devil waits, is in me missing the same goal twice in a row. I know that if I miss any of my goals for more than 2 days in a row, It'll be enough for me to unconsciously start using rationalizations and my brain will find every reason to think of this daily goal as useless.
Once your brain has kicked in the rationalization mechanism and you find yourself skipping or removing goals on a consistent basis, you're in an accelerating downward spiral towards complete stop and sinking.
Think you're above that shit? Why do you think almost everyone you see, including your successful friends, seem to be fairly stuck in the same place or moving at a snail's pace?
Why do you think you're not doing everything you could be doing at massive action levels? Simple, you're in the loop of rationalizations.
Actually exiting the loop requires a lot of effort, time, and a bit of luck. You need to go back to consistency and start small to build back up that discipline of taking daily action consistently. This is a massive waste of time and energy, of-course there's also the chance that you'll just fall off the deep end and never come back, staying in your little comfort bubble with more than 95% of the population, the odds are against you.
That's why for me, skipping something once if it's really necessary is OK, you have to be flexible in life, anything that's too rigid will break with enough pressure. In contrast, you also don't want to be too "flexible" in life where you have no rigidity, both lose at the end.
Find the sweet spot of what perfect consistency is for you, if you go too hard on the discipline path you'll break, but if you don't have strict rules you'll never be able to generate enough force and inertia to push towards your goals long and fast enough to reach them.
Remember - missing your goal once is fine, once you do it twice you've just invited the devil, and boy does he want your motivation to go to waste. Don't accept that. Be great.
Robby