“Don’t just work hard – work harder. Constantly raise the bar on yourself.” Sage advice from nationally syndicated talk show host and Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall.
If there’s one thing I’m learning as I talk to my guests, it’s this: successful people are almost never satisfied. They’re always aiming for the next thing, existing in a constant state of near-achievement. Just one more inch, just a few more seconds, another million bucks, one more award – theirs is a never-ending realm of reaching up.
The thing is, to me that sounds a little exhausting. If I’m to succeed in life, does that entail a ceaseless battle, a long road whose horizon is infinity itself?
But recently it dawned on me: the only way to avoid fatigue is to never stop. Because if I think about my own successes, it makes sense. I like to run – actually that’s not true, I hate running but I do it anyway – and I almost always push myself to the very limits of my aerobic ability. but I never – ever – collapse during a training session or a race. It’s always at the end. When I stop.
Haven’t you noticed that? It’s when we stop striving that something inside of us says, ‘Okay, rest time.’ It translates to quitting as well. If you want to achieve something, the best way to stay motivated is to continue working at it. So better still: continue working harder at it. It’s all about the accelerative process of your endeavours. Maintaining momentum will ensure you don’t start to flag, yes, but if you really want to turbo-charge your motivation, you should keep searching for the next thing, the better way of doing something, the steeper climb.
I think of motivation as a physical entity within. It’s something that needs training, and just like our muscles and our aerobic systems, we can – and should – increase the intensity of that training on a regular basis.
And it’s the same for maintaining our enthusiasm for a goal. It’s not about changing direction, which can be counterproductive, rather changing pace. Multi-award winning author R.J. Ellory says, “Persistence is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. And don’t quit. Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.” What better way to avoid the temptation to quit than to continuously push yourself to improvement?
Try that next time you feel like something isn’t working out for you. Instead of leaning towards giving up, lean the other way. Think of achievement as only neutral – and aim beyond it.
In Part 4: Dealing with setbacks
image: Sophie Upton courtesy of wwarby | everystockphoto