Staying Positive By Looking Backward
Dan Sullivan
Founder of Strategic Coach | Entrepreneurial Coach | Speaker | 10x Thinker | 50x Published Author
When you first set a goal, you probably have a vision in your mind of what that goal will look like once it’s achieved. You probably have an idealized image of that future achievement and its positive impact. As you move toward that vision and make progress, you’ll probably even measure the distance between where you are and that ideal vision to determine how far you have left to go.?
But all of this is a great way to get demotivated, discouraged, and down on yourself.
Instead, I advise a different approach that will have you staying positive on a consistent basis.
Setting achievable goals and measuring backward.
There is a right way and a wrong way to set goals and to measure your progress. Simply put, your ideals should be used only as a way of illuminating your specific, measurable, tangible goals. If you use your ideal as your goal, you’ve set yourself up for disappointment. Use your ideal vision of a bigger and better future to set goals you can actually achieve.
Then, when you measure your progress, the key to staying positive, inspired, and motivated is to look backward to your starting point and measure from there to where you are now to see all the growth and improvements you’ve made. If you measure forward, toward your ideal, you’ll be disheartened by how far you have left to go, because, ultimately, the ideal is a constantly moving target and not achievable anyway.
Here are four benefits of measuring backward instead of forward:
By making these simple switches in your mind to set achievable goals and measure backward instead of forward, you’ll see that staying positive and motivated is easy. And if you find yourself striving after ideals or getting in a negative zone by looking at how far you have left to go to achieve your vision, just remind yourself to flip the switch. It’s a mindset shift that takes practice but in time will become a habit. Share this strategy with others, and you’ll be surrounded by positive, energized people as you work toward your bigger future goals.
领英推荐
?------------
If you’re consistently unhappy with the success you’ve achieved in your business or personal life, you might be in The Gap. Check out my latest book The Gap And The Gain to learn how to get out of The Gap and embrace this important mindset.
I hope this article triggered some new ideas, projects, initiatives, and thinking for you and your business. Let me know that you liked it by clicking the thumbs up icon above.
Thanks for reading,
Dan
Make sure to check out more of my latest articles because little things keep becoming bigger and better when you think about them in new and different ways.
Also, here are the links to follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter so you can expand your thinking every day!
?
Well said
Inspirer | Fulfillment Coaching
3 年The saying holds true..."how do you know where you're going if you don't know where you've been"?... or something like this. Our past (story) is key to our future chapters.
Newsletter & Email Course Specialist ????| Helping productivity experts grow their audience through newsletters and educational email courses. ???| On a mission to help 100 creators launch & scale newsletters. ??
3 年I think most of us falling into this trap “If you use your ideal?as?your goal, you’ve set yourself up for disappointment.” Thank you and Benjamin Hardy, PhD so much for writing the book to deepen our understandings of the concept.