why many people think there is a silver bullet, a secret trick, or magical shortcut when we deal with personal goals?
We have a plenty of undeniable examples that big things take long.
Nobody expects to graduate from college in two years, everyone expects four. Nobody expects dating to grow into meaningful marriage in a month, everyone expects it will take years.
And I don’t recall anyone complaining about that or looking for a shortcut to speed it up.
Yet when it comes to our personal goals we believe that there is got to be a hidden door leading us directly to the result.
We’re in a game of marathons
Up until completing our formal education (whether it’s school, college, or university) we’re in highly controlled environment. We’ve been dictated what, when, and how long we learn. At after school activities we’ve been thoroughly guided as well.
So we don’t question terms and duration. We let our teachers and professors to define them.
They give us short assignments and it seems like we’re in sprints. However these are actually marathons. Most of the time we just don’t see this. The higher we go up the educational ladder the more autonomy we have and the higher the chance that we start seeing those marathons.
No wonder that without this understanding we look at personal goals as sprints and want results here and now. When we can’t get quick result, we start looking for shortcuts just to realize that they don’t help (in most cases). What’s next? Getting discouraged and dropping off.
A successful journey to achieving personal goal starts with a realization that we’re in marathon, not a sprint.
We can’t run marathon twice a day
Good. Every goal is a marathon. Still everything is falling apart. We juggle lots of tasks. Every day something falls down. Every day we reschedule something or fall into unhealthy lifestyle to squeeze every minute of the day for the tasks.
Why is that?
Maybe because you have too many commitments. Multiple goals, handling day to day issues, miscellaneous annoying tasks.
I’m not a runner, but I’m sure it’s not possible to run marathon twice a day. That’s too much.
We have our limits.
Same way we cannot successfully chase too many things in our life (goals and tasks). It’s better to balance work for the day and time we have available to us.
We can run marathons every week
What we can do is spread the work thinner over longer period.
So for example, 4 hours task planned for a day with only 2 free hours (and idea to steal 2 more ours from sleep time) becomes 3 tasks 90 minutes each planned to be done during 3 days.
This lowers stress. Especially when things go unpredictably. Be sure they will. Not for every task, but for much more tasks than we would predict.
Ultimately this means achieving each individual goal takes longer. Yes, it does.
Does this mean achieving less goals in five years? Actually, no.
I bet that with steady but low pace we can accomplish more in a long run, because we are protected from burnouts and periods of zero achievements.
Maybe a real line on the sand which defines a move from teenage to adulthood is realizing that important and wonderful things in life are a result of marathons, not sprints.