How Inspiration, Consistency, And Sacrifice Are Needed To Achieve Goals That We Find Difficult.
What up everybody! Get pumped to achieve YOUR goals. They are very important, but sometimes we struggle to achieve them. But before I share my thoughts based on the title of this article, I just wanted to let you know that you can accomplish and overcome anything that you set your mind too. You are capable of overthrowing trials that bear you down. You might not be the best at it, but with a little bit of courage and practice you can multiply your talents, grow your knowledge, and achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.
Now I believe the primary point of making goals is to achieve the desires of our hearts. I am sure you would agree. As a matter of fact, I do not know how anybody could make a goal that they truly did not want to acheive. I share that because technically we can make goals about anything. Even goals that do not neccessarily stretch us to be more as human beings.
For example, I could make a goal to go down the road and get a Wendy’s sandwhich tomorrow. I could also make a goal to watch the first three seasons of The Office in a week. However, these goals are short term goals that we tend to make for the simple enjoyment of the quick and satisfying outcome. Now do not get me wrong those goals are good fun simple goals. There is technically nothing wrong with them. You or people around you may even have those goals and they may be important to you, which is perfectly okay. However, in this written piece I am going to be focusing on long term goals. Those goals you may have set that will stretch you to your limits, and not short term goals like the goofy ones I just mentioned.
This brings us to the main event that I am excited to share with you today. I believe there are three important principles that we need to understand in order to accomplish difficult goals. They are….
- Inspiration
- Consistency
- Sacrifice
I did order these based on the principles a person may need first to progress in the goals that he or she may have established for themselves in their day to day process.
INSPIRATION
I love to be inspired and I also love to see people inspired! Seeing the fire in someone eyes. The fuel that drives them. Being Inspired is a beautiful thing. As a matter of fact, from my experience, when we first start these adventurous journeys to success it all starts with being inspired. A spark in our soul that says “I want to and have to be able to do that”. The problem that we often run into is that the things that first inspired our goals tend to fade and sometimes ultimately diminish. This then has a short domino effect on our dreams. Which is why inspiration is so important to achieving those long term difficult goals, because if we do not have the fuel to go, we will not be going anywhere.
So then, if you have this problem, what should you do? The answer is simple! You need to find some daily dose of inspiration to continue to fuel your fire.
Bars!(Maybe I should be a rapper)
Anyway, let me say that one more time! You need to find some daily dose of inspiration to continue to fuel your fire. These Long term goals take energy and time, so it is very important to remember why you want to accomplish them.
Here is an experience to help illistrate.
When I was in my freshman year of high school I took a guitar class for the first time before really knowing anything about how to play the guitar. I really wanted to learn and I loved music. When I took the class the teacher would teach us simply about things we needed to know before we started playing. Aka, the boring stuff. Things like scales, fingerings, and standard chords. Then after he was done from 70 percent boring us and 30 percent giving us some nice insightful instruction, he then gave us the rest of the hour to practice.
Now even though it was technically a beginners guitar class there were some that were obviously not beginners. People who just wanted to take an easy, fun class.
Well one day we were all “practicing” as normal and this senior that was in our class was just shredding the scales up and down. While he was doing it he would use a cool little lick(guitar tricks) here and a crispy little lick there, over someone playing chords. I ( being a beginner guitar player that could barely keep my non-calloused fingers on my thin steel strings in proper form), felt extremley inspired.
In my head I was like “if he could do that, so could I”. So I went home and learned some scales to practice. I practiced a lot everyday. With wanting to become a good guitar player like I saw my fellow classmate achieve, I would sometimes get down on myself. Specifically, when I was stuck in a rut and not performing as well as I wanted to be. As a result, on some days I lost the inspiration to practice.
When this happened though, I knew in my heart I still wanted to be good. So what I would do is I would go on the computer and search videos on youtube of guitarists who had the talents I had desired to perform so badly and I just watched them. Then after a while of watching videos I had the fire again to keep practicing, thinking in my head “if they could do it, I could do it”. This process happened several times. After that continuous process of being inspired enough to work to having to find inspiration again, I eventually became good enough to feel I had accomplished my goal in free-styling on the guitar using scales that i had learned. I did it and I was proud of myself, but I was able to do it because I kept fueling the fire of my dreams. That is why I find inspiration to be so important.
Another important lesson from this story I would like to point out, is that I chose to sought out the things that would inspire me. I did not choose to wait to be inspired when it got hard, because it may have never come. It is important that when we are trying to succeed at goals, we should be actively seeking for inspiration to accomplish them.
Of course, inspiration comes in the form of many different things. Where your inspiration comes from may not be where my inspiration comes from. You may be inspired by breath taking views, talking to a person you admire, or even by seeing someone perform some marvelous talent. For all I know it could be all three and much more. The point is to keep yourself inspired so you can continually progress toward your dreams. So that one day you can achieve them, proud in yourself that you never gave up. Then start the journey again excited to succeed at some new goals.
CONSISTENCY
Consistency is key! You might have noticed it when it came to applying inspiration, but it is also applies to effort. When it comes to consistency and applying it to things you want to achieve, it makes a huge difference.
Consistency is the simple difference between achieving your dreams in a matter of months and years, to achieving them in years and decades. To be consistent is to keep moving forward. I know it can be one of the most difficult things to do in life, considering life is hardly ever available for consistency since it is always throwing us curve balls, but it is very important.
The importance of what lies beneath being consistent are two things. The ability to measure yourself and your progress. The other is the ability to hold yourself accountable.
Let’s talk about the ability to measure yourself first.
The Ability to Measure
Being able to measure yourself is one of the major reasons why we should choose to actively pursue are goals on daily or weekly basis. Seeing how we are performing when trying accomplish are dreams gives ourselves power to make the necessary changes on our route to achieve greatness. When you are being consistent and are looking to succeed at long term goals, being able to measure yourself gives you critical information on how well you are doing. Let me use another example.
Let’s say you were 220 pounds and you had a long term goal to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year. Now for the sake of simplicity, you are 2 weeks into the year before starting the process so the that leaves you with the weekly goal of losing 1 pound per week for the rest of year.
You know because life is perfect like that. Ah-ah, just kidding! We can only hope.
Anyway, you are attempting to lose 1 pound a week consistently for about a year. In this bold new venture of proper dieting and exercise of your choosing, you get on the scale once a week to see you progress. Well at this point in time it is one week after Easter. More specifically, it is one week after Easter Sunday dinner where you decided to bless yourself and binge on some of that good fattening food.
Now you are at the scale. You step on to your awesome fancy digital scale and found that even with exercise from that week you stayed the same from the week before in weight. Are you failure? No! Absolutely not. After all the year is not up.
However, because of your consistency, you have had the opportunity to monitor yourself to see how well you were performing as it applies to your goal. It is because of your consistency that you now know that you have to sacrifice a little more time and effort in order to make up for that pound.
Measuring yourself becomes a lot easier when you are consistent. As you measure yourself you are giving yourself constent updates on your progress as it applies to your goal.
I realize that the example I gave was regarding a setback to an achievement, but the opposite still applies.
You could of realized from stepping on your scale that you lost 5 pounds. The information is still important for achieving your long term goal because in this case you now know what you are doing is working. Thankfully it all comes from the ablity to measure yourself through consistency.
The Ability to be Accountable
The ability to be accountable to yourself is closley connected with the ability to measure yourself. After all, how is it possible to measure yourself without being accountable? It is not.
Measuring yourself is the result of choosing to be accountable. Stepping on that scale is being accountable to all that hard work that you put in the week before.
(Again, it also applies to the opposite, but I am going to assume you are all go getters and do not slack off.)
To be accountable is to remember and take responsibility for things we want to get done and remembering comes from doing things consistently.
My experience to illustrate this is from my small goal to consistently walk 3 miles every other day. I have been doing it for a little while now. By now my body remembers that walking 3 miles every other day is something that I do. Even if I do not want to do it, the value of being preaviously diligent allows for my mind and body to keep me accountable. The same principle is applicable to you and your dreams.
…Consistency Continued
The value of consistency is great. It show ourselves and those around us that we want to succeed at the goals we are pursuing. If we attempt everyday to pursue the difficult long-term goals we so desire in life. We will always have the advantage of learning from it and moving forward. Isn’t that what we all want? At least to be moving forward no matter how small. Well we can do it, if ME and YOU choose to be consistent.
SACRIFICE
Sacrifice! The act of giving something up you care about, for something you care about even more.
So to flip what I said around, if you do not care about achieving those goals you set up then do not worry about it. You will not have to deal with the experience of sacrifice. As for the rest of us, sacrifice is part of the journey.
Now I do not mean too make this sound like you need to go through a Shakespearean tragedy to succeed because that is not the case. Not at all. Those things may happen based off of the circumstances of our lifes, but usually the sacrifices come through the little things. Things like not being able to hang out with friends, sleep in, or Binge eat on your favorite holiday.
Again, those are examples. You may have other things that you care about. They may be small, but they have value in your life. You may even have many things that you value and enjoy doing. Everthing takes time and we only have so much time in a single day of our lives.
When we make new long-term goals we are adding to the things we already do in a day. Which means if you plan on achieving your goals in a timely manner through consistent hard work, something needs to go. Remember, It is the many little sacrifices that end up helping us achieve our biggest goals.
Just like that weight loss example I used before, if you find out that your 1 pound behind schedule, what more are you going to do to lose two pounds for that week instead of one? You cannot do the same thing as before because that only got you one pound and time is precious.
You could go the alternative route and choose not to sacrifice anything, but then it puts you farther from your desired goals. Which consequently, is going to put you one step back from where you want to be. This is why in order for you to succed at your goals you need to be willing to sacrifice. It may be only a little bit, but it is a sacrifice none the less. It will help you accomplish your goals if you truly care about accomplishing them.
CONCLUSION
I know that inspiration, consistency, and sacrifice are keys to success. Specifically when it comes to long term difficult goals that we so bravely try to venture. I know this from my own experience. I hope my outlook was insightful.
If you are starting to make goals, that is wonderful! I know you can succeed. It may not come easy, but every good thing is worth it.
Do not forget that you are a capable individual and have the ability to succeed at what ever you put your whole heart into. You can do it.
