Motivation and Success

Running Without Walking

Do you have lofty goals and towering ambitions? Do you aspire to change the world, rise to the top of your field, or create a lasting legacy? Many people fantasize about finding success, but only a handful of people actually pursue these extraordinary dreams. Very few have the passion and vigor necessary to make their most fantastical dreams come true. But even if you have all the passion in the world, this bad habit may damage your motivation.

When you dream of your own success, you may feel restless to jump to the end to get to the good part. You want to build your business, you want to publish your book, you want to read headlines about your accomplishments, and you don't want to wait. When you get excited to make your dreams a reality, you run without walking. You skip the years of boring, grinding work you need to polish your skills. You overlook the important lessons that each failure has to teach you. You try to accomplish your goals without a proper foundation, and you fall flat on your face.

You may realize you don't know what you're doing, and your motivation may suffer. You may even lose faith in yourself as your incredible aspirations drift further and further away. Now, if you want to grow your motivation, be patient with yourself and be patient with your success. Before you can accomplish your goals, you need to learn the fundamentals. You don't cut corners, you don't skip steps, you don't let your excitement control you. You build a proper foundation, and slowly but surely, you will accrue the confidence you need to succeed. It may not be fun, exciting, or glamorous, but the more time you spend refining your craft, the more motivation and confidence you'll have when it's time to move forward.

Lack of Learning

How often do you learn something new? In school, we learn new things almost every day, but after graduating and embarking into the real world, most people stop learning. They stop reading, they stop exploring, they stop challenging their minds, or investigating new subjects. But learning is a fantastic source of motivation. Whether you're learning something useful or not, even if you're digesting random facts, any new information can leave you motivated and inspired.

It can help form new connections or relate things in ways you've never thought of before. No one is going to force you to learn anything, but learning should be a lifelong hobby. No matter how old you get, no matter what field you work in, learning will always push you in a new direction and ignite that spark inside you. So, make an effort to learn at least one new thing every day.

Fruitless Comparisons

How often do you compare yourself to other people? Comparisons of any kind, whether you're measuring success, attractiveness, or material wealth, are a bad habit. Yet, many people compare themselves to every single person they meet. Why is that? Well, because social comparisons come from a place of insecurity. When you don't feel confident in yourself, when you're not proud of what you've done, you compare yourself to other people.

If they're worse than you, then you feel better about yourself, but if they're smarter, stronger, or more successful than you are, well, then you start criticizing yourself. Either way, you're not building any real confidence. Those ups and downs come from extrinsic stimuli, which makes them shallow and temporary. In order to build lasting motivation, you need intrinsic confidence. That's confidence that stems from self-belief and genuine pride. Making social comparisons will never help you develop intrinsic confidence.

In other words, social comparisons are a great way to damage your self-esteem and ruin your motivation. So, what habits in your real life encourage these comparisons? Social media is a big one. On these platforms, you can scroll through thousands of pictures and profiles in a day, and if you don't feel confident in yourself, you may unconsciously compare yourself to every person you encounter. Every time someone else accomplishes something, every time someone wins an award, it may feel like a personal attack on your character. You may feel like you've fallen behind, like you're not good enough. And when you spend hours feeling inferior, behind, and belittled, well, your motivation dwindles to nothing. Your confidence crumbles to pieces, and your self-esteem sinks as low as it can go.

So, instead of putting yourself in this precarious position, avoid social comparisons. Don't measure yourself against everyone in the world. Not only is it unhelpful, it's just not fair. Everyone pursues their dreams differently. There's no point in comparing yourself to someone who's chasing a different goal or working in a different field. Even if someone seems farther ahead than you, you never really know what opportunity will help you find success. So don't compare yourself to everyone. Instead, pick a few people you admire, people who are working the kind of job you want, people who are achieving the goals you've set for yourself, or living the life you aspire to create. Find a handful of these like-minded people and use them as mentors.

Don't make comparisons, don't judge yourself against them. Use their success to motivate your own. Follow in their footsteps, learn from their mistakes, and as you achieve more and more, make only one kind of comparison, and that is: compare yourself to yourself. That's really the only fair comparison that you can make: you to you. And if you're making progress against yourself, well, that's something to be proud of.

Giving Up Immediately

When something doesn't go your way, what do you do? Do you try again, or do you give up? Many people, after experiencing any kind of failure, just let their dream slip away. But those failures should actually motivate you to succeed. The most successful people got where they are today by driving themselves through failure. They experienced many setbacks, they faced many obstacles, but they didn't give up. Instead, their failure motivated them to push harder, to keep trying until they accomplished their goal.

Now, of course, motivating yourself after a major setback is challenging. It takes an incredible amount of passion and self-discipline. So, start with something small. The next time a little project doesn't go the way you expected, don't let yourself walk away. Practice fighting back in every aspect of your life. The more you persevere, the more motivated you'll feel when failure comes knocking.

Distraction Vulnerability

Are you leaving yourself open to distractions? Many of the most common distractors are easy to avoid. Well, let's say you're prone to texting in the middle of the workday. Each message that you send may only take a few seconds, but those seconds really add up. To make matters worse, each time you send a message, it takes your brain a little bit of time to refocus. And as your mind slips away from work, it becomes a chore to motivate yourself again and again.

Ah, but it's easy to remove distractors like these from your environment. All you have to do is pay attention and really think about where you waste the most time. Whether it's texting, video games, or watching TV, don't let these distractors continue hurting your motivation. Remove them from your life, and your motivation will soar.

Chasing Multiple Goals

Multitasking seems like a great idea, but more often than not, it's a recipe for disaster. When you try to do multiple things at the same time, you're splitting your attention. The simple fact is the human brain is not designed to focus on multiple tasks simultaneously. It's possible to do many small, simple tasks at the same time, but larger, more challenging projects deserve all of your attention. The same goes for your goals.

Don't try to accomplish a crowd of different goals at the same time. You'd be surprised how many people struggle not with setting goals, but with setting too many goals. They envision for themselves several different futures, all of which they want equally. They half-heartedly chase three or four different aspirations all at the same time and rarely accomplish any of them. Just like multitasking, splitting your attention chasing multiple goals divides your time and effort.

So instead of pouring a little into a lot of things, just put all of your time and effort into one dream, just one vision of your future. Not only will you have a much easier time motivating yourself, you're also much more likely to achieve your goal.

Working Constantly

For many successful people, the secret behind their motivation is momentum. They keep themselves disciplined and motivated each day by building on top of the day before. Now, each accomplishment snowballs one after the other until they find themselves climbing to the top.

The problem is, when your ball gets rolling, when you feel yourself growing more and more motivated, you may never stop. You may press on the gas pedal and refuse to let up, no matter how tired, hungry, or mentally exhausted you feel. Now, if this sounds like you, sooner or later, you're going to crash and burn, leaving your motivation in shambles. Momentum is valuable, but it's equally important to take breaks.

Step away from your work for a weekend or even just an afternoon. Eat some good food, get enough sleep, spend time with family, or just take some time to think. Relaxation is crucial to keep your mind and body working the way you want. Without relaxation, your mind will grow foggy and cluttered, your mood will sink lower and lower. But if you can find the right balance between rest and motivation, you can maintain your momentum for years to come.

Summary Table

Habit	Impact on Motivation	Solution
Running Without Walking	May cause failure and loss of confidence.	Be patient, build a strong foundation.
Lack of Learning	Decreases motivation and creativity.	Learn something new every day.
Fruitless Comparisons	Damages self-esteem and motivation.	Avoid comparisons, focus on personal growth.
Giving Up Immediately	Limits potential and growth.	Persevere through failures.
Distraction Vulnerability	Interrupts focus and productivity.	Identify and eliminate distractions.
Chasing Multiple Goals	Divides attention and effort.	Focus on one goal at a time.
Working Constantly	Leads to burnout and loss of motivation.	Take breaks, balance work and relaxation.

Conclusion

To maintain motivation and achieve your goals, it's crucial to be mindful of habits that can undermine your efforts. By focusing on building a strong foundation, continuously learning, avoiding comparisons, persevering through setbacks, eliminating distractions, prioritizing your goals, and balancing work with relaxation, you can keep your motivation strong and steady.

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