The Three Main Ingredients to Being Successful, Staying Consistent, and Reaching Major Life Goals

When I was in high school, I played sports year-round, and getting daily movement was easy. When I attended college, I had to figure out a new way because I didn’t have the consistency of team sports. Eventually, I found running, and that became my release from stress and dorm room sitting.

Once I graduated, I raced. I did half marathons, cycling races, triathlons and even participated in a figure competition (bodybuilding).

Unfortunately, I ended up with debilitating back pain through racing, sports, heavy lifting, and running. I slowly but surely started having the numbing and tingling sensation in the back of my leg and into my foot.

As you can imagine, this was pretty scary, and my mind started to cut all ties with exercise — assuming the pace and intensity were the problems for my back.

I was lost without goals

I’d always been able to exercise and keep myself “motivated.” But with this pain, I was less and less motivated.

This led to stress, anxiety, weight gain, frustrations, weakness, and overall unhappiness. I would start something then stop. Consistency became the biggest problem with my fitness journey, and I struggled to understand why.

The not so secret ingredient that helped me get moving again (and realize how important goal setting is)

What was I missing? A goal. Goals are crucial to sticking with anything.

I started to realize, in high school, the goal was to win games and be cool. In my school, which was very small, it was unheard of not to play sports. I wanted to keep playing sports because the payoff was huge — coolness, time with friends, fun, competition, and winning!

When I graduated and went to college, I no longer had organized sports. I needed to find a new goal to stay consistent with my exercise and movement. This was when I discovered running. I always set personal goals with this. I just kept adding and adding miles. Also, I had a goal to stay in shape — I’m sure subconsciously, there was an undercurrent goal of finding a mate. Being out of shape had severe consequences — not attractive, no mate, and alone forever in life.

Post-college, I did not have all the above. My focus turned to racing and competing — this kept me going for a while too. Again, I had a clear goal of not only competing but completing. If you don’t train for triathlons and marathons, race days are less than enjoyable, and there’s a chance you’ll have to drop out. This was a goal that kept me moving.

Then on to my 30’s — I had no goal, and I added pain on top of it, which is an excellent recipe for no motivation and inconsistencies.

Until lately, I was not aware I always had goals that kept me going. Without a goal, I struggled. Most people do — and then they get frustrated and create a self-hate environment for not having the willpower, discipline, and strength to keep going.

This is a downhill spiral that, if not caught, will keep getting worse and worse.

Once I realized this (sort of by accident), I could finally stay disciplined and consistent again.

I’m happy to say, I’ve stayed consistent with my workouts and body movement since May of this year!

My new goal is to move my body 80% of the time within the month. I’ve been able to stay consistent with my workouts and feel better than I’ve felt in years.

The Importance of setting goals and why most of us don’t know how to

I realized that not having a goal for 10+ years led to a lot of pain and suffering. I was frustrated with myself in so many ways.

The weird thing is, this is not rocket science. However, in my life, I’ve always had obvious goals created for me. I never had to set them myself, so I did not know how to do this, nor did I realize this was the issue. I assumed I just sucked at life and had no motivation or discipline. I failed to learn one of the core principles: setting a goal motivates you (because goals are a warm bath to your brain, and the mind will latch on to what’s put in front of it).

Not knowing how to set a goal is a huge problem for adults. Think about it, since we’re tiny people, we have goals set for us.

Take your first step — graduate from kindergarten. Get through high school and college. Once in the real world, get a job.

So every step of our journey, we’ve had goals put in front of us, and we’ve never been responsible for them or come up with them on our own.

It’s no wonder many adults flounder with life post-graduation because they’re now responsible for their fate, successes, etc. Schools don’t teach this type of critical thinking to be successful in life. They pretend it’s all about getting good grades, and you should be fine. This is so far from the truth. Without specific goals, our mind doesn’t have anything to focus on, so it comes up with bullshit, which 99.9% of the time are unhealthy goals, and they become fixations versus actual productive goals.

Having a goal is just one of three ingredients that are needed for consistency and continued motivation (in anything)

Once I realized where I fell short for so many years, I thought constructively about what else was missing that I used to have in my life. I knew setting goals was a big problem, but what else goes along with this to see success?

There are three key ingredients:

1. Set a goal and commit to it.
2. Have accountability/support for it — someone who is safe and can “be there for you.”
3. Know the consequences of not hitting your goals.

Having Accountability and Support

If I use my years growing up as an example, I always had accountability. My mom and dad were publicly informed of my grades, and they knew if I showed up after school for practices or not.

I also had accountability to my peers if I did not go to practice, which left them with one less player, letting them down.

Later in life, when I latched on to races, I usually made it public knowledge because I would accompany the race with fundraising. So, not only did I have friends relying on my participation and cheering me on during our training, I also had a nonprofit relying on me to help fund their work.

One of the biggest motivators to staying consistent, being successful, and reaching goals is recognizing the consequences

In adulthood, this gets harder and harder to recognize, and a proactive approach is vital.

There were massive consequences in school and playing sports if I did not show up to practice — I couldn’t play in the game! Plus, as mentioned, the coolness was half the reason for joining sports, and if I did not show up to practice, my friends would shun me, and I’d be a loser for letting everyone down.

I know these are petty consequences, but hey, it was high school, right? Back then, these things could make or break your life.

Another example of how important consequences are and how much they motivate us — do you go to a job you hate every day? So many people do. What trumps that hate? A major consequence. You could get fired, which leads to no pay, unpaid bills, and no home, shelter, or food for you and your family. The consequences are significant to keep you showing up to something you literally hate.

Imagine having a consequence identified that was this serious for your goals? Having a result is such a motivator for your mind on any goal because its ultimate goal is to stay safe, comfortable, etc. So, if you give it the obvious consequence that is otherwise bad for you, it’ll get excited and help you stay motivated and reach your goals.

If you’re frustrated with why you can’t keep at something, consider the consequences if you don’t do it. Write it down. Keep it somewhere that constantly reminds you of the effects.

Will you let people down? Will you leave your child without? Will it make you age prematurely? Will you not exercise, and your spouse leaves you because you’ll gain weight and not feel good about yourself any longer?

Having a consequence is a huge motivator. I did not realize this until I took Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s, Create Your Future Self Project. In this free course, Dr. Ben talks about identifying consequences if you don’t reach your goal.

Thinking consciously about consequences was eye-opening for me. And on top of this huge ah-ha moment, I also realized we often do this unconsciously, but with big goals where your brain’s never done the work before, you have to come up with something consciously.

If you don’t do things proactively, you’ll fall prey to your mind doing things in the background for you and on your behalf. A lot of the time, when your brain does this, the goals, consequences, etc., are not healthy, leading you to a lot of unrest and unhappiness (and you don’t know why, which is even worse and more frustrating).

Do this exercise to help you reach your goals — make sure you’ve identified a goal, you have public accountability, and you’ve identified a consequence

I recommend starting small. This will give you a quick proof point that this works. Without it, you’ll continue to spin out on reaching goals. Plus, you’ll flounder and wonder what is wrong with you.

Which, by the way, there’s NOTHING wrong with you. I know you think there is because I’ve done the exact same thing. But the thing is, this is human nature not to go out of our comfort zone. It’s human nature to focus on the negative. It’s human nature to stay safe. So if we think about wanting to do something hard, out of our comfort zone, the mind will trump all else, leading to all the frustrations we feel when we don’t stick with something.

This simple exercise applied to minor or major goals can distinguish between having a fulfilling awesome life and being miserable

Here’s an example of a small and quick goal — and again, I would go through this exercise very proactively. Write it down in a notebook, on your phone, on a scrap piece of paper. Anything is better than nothing. Just doing it in your mind won’t work. This won’t work because there’s a good chance you’ll need to remind yourself of it again, and writing it down helps with this part of the process.

1. Goal — I want to move my body for 30 minutes three times this week, and I’m committed to doing this.
2. Accountability and Support — I ask my neighbor if she wants to walk with me Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning for 30 mins and ask her not to let me not do it!
3. Consequence — If I do not do this after publicly committing to it, I will let myself down, which will lead me to be disappointed, sad, frustrated, and annoyed with myself. This will create a self-hate and not a self-love environment, adding to a possible depression state of mind. I want to feel happy, not sad. I especially wish to not to feel sad because I have kids, and being sad around my kids is not a good role model for them. I need to be present and loving toward them, and if I can’t, I won’t be a good mom.

This concept is straightforward and not sparkly. But I promise you, if you start applying it to other aspects of your life, you’ll see your successes in all facets of your life expand 10x. This isn’t just a topic for a blog. This is actual science.

The mind is a not so mysterious organ, and we know how it works. And the way it works is needing all of the above to not dive into a negative thought process. If not given productive, proactive goals, it’ll make up its own. Most of its own objectives/goals are to keep you safe, small, and comfortable. These things, unfortunately, do not lead to the happiness and success you’re looking for.

Do you feel like you’re in a rut? Are you sick of feeling stuck? Do you often dream of “more” but you’re not sure what more means? Perhaps you’re wanting more but feel guilty because to the outside world you have “everything”. You’re not alone! And you can have everything wonderful in your life and then some. Go get my free “Ultimate Guide to Getting Unstuck” and finally start living the life you dream about.

Melissa Coloton is a writer on a mission to ensure you have everything in life you dream of. She writes to help others connect with their soulful purpose in life. She teaches you how to ensure your life is fully aligned with your soul so you feel happy, peaceful, and full of life. She loves hearing from her readers. If you’re interested in chatting with her, send her a note at info@melissacoloton.com!