How to Start Over After Giving Up
One of the biggest challenges we all experience is staying consistent. If you’re a starter but not a finisher by nature - then finishing a project could be quite challenging as well.
After reading a bunch of books, watching YouTube videos and looking at my own experience when I did finish the project and/or stayed consistent, these were the steps that helped me and I hope that you’ll find them useful.
You may have taken these steps in the past and got great results but didn’t realise what you actually did differently. Let’s look at these steps. Usually, once you do understand what gives you the result you want - it’s easier to repeat the steps and achieve the result with something else.
Step 1: Know Your Real Why
First of all, it’s important to understand why we want to do what we’re planning to do. Why does it actually matter? And usually, it’s not something that comes to your mind. So let’s keep looking until you find what’s the real reason behind your actions.
For example, you’d like to write a book. Why do you want to write a book? Maybe your answer will be: because I want to be a published author. Great. Why does it matter? Why do you want to be a published author? Maybe because you want to be recognised in your industry.
Why does being recognised in your industry matters to you? Because maybe you’ll get more clients. And why does it matter that you’ll get more clients? You’ll get more money coming in. And why does this matter? Because you’ll be able to spend more time with your family and live the lifestyle you desire: travel more, take art lessons or buy a house on the beach.
Once you’re settled on the real reason why you want to get something done - you’ll have a powerful tool that will help you to keep going. So it’s not only about being a published author, it’s also about having all the time you want with your family and that house on the beach (or a lake) that you have on your vision board.
Step 2: Small Steps Do Matter
If you’ve never done something before or you failed at staying consistent with something, then it’s time to realise that small steps do matter. For example, you want to stay consistent with exercising, then trying to exercise every day for an hour won’t help you to stay consistent.
Making small steps doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve something BIG.
If you decide to get healthier and fitter, start with the small steps. Start with 10 minutes a day. 5 minutes a day! They do matter. If you exercise 10 minutes a day by the end of the week it will be 70 minutes. Let’s round it up a bit, and say, it’s an hour per week. Then by the end of the year, you’ll have 52 hours of exercising.
Would you say that 52 hours of exercising make a difference in how you feel and look?
What would be the small step you can take to achieve what you want to achieve?
And if that step still seems too big, make it even smaller. Writing 100 words a day of your book will still give you 1000 words by the end of day ten.
Step 3: Done is Better Than Perfect
If you’re a perfectionist or a recovering perfectionist, this step is crucial. Say, you’ve been writing for 10 days, and then on the 11th day - you didn’t.
What’s your reaction? It’s not perfect anymore? Did you miss one day? Did you fail?
No. Not at all. You keep going. There is no need to punish yourself or be disappointed that it didn’t happen without one day missing. Keep going. Before you know - you’ll finish your book, you’ll get fitter and exercising or writing will become a habit.
Look at your own achievements. Something that you have already been doing consistently. Have these steps played a role? What else helped you to get it done?
Once you’ve got answers...
Rinse and repeat.
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You may also like this article: How to find your Why and why it’s important.