Some days, when we are delighted, we suddenly remember that our life is wasted. Why don’t we attend a swimming class before our bodies are piled up? But it only takes 1 day to lose your motivation. How can you keep doing something in the long run?
I never advise you to do evil things to achieve your goals. But if you do, to advance to a high position and at least make a name for yourself, you need to maintain your focus for the long term and motivate yourself to reach the ultimate goal far away.
Albert Einstein said: If you want to live a good life, tie your life to a purpose, not to people or things.
Scientists and researchers put on their white coats day and night and die to uncover the secrets of the universe and discover things so that the human race can conquer more territories every day. But this kind of work may take several years, several decades, or even several generations to come to fruition. Scientific advances often move so slowly that we must meet our dead before we see them come to fruition. Only if they succeed! Because they do not guarantee success anywhere.
In any case, scientists have found much meaning and motivation in their work to move it forward. Basically, it is because of the “long-term focus” of scientists and researchers on their work that we are not already on the deathbed of home hunger.
A better example than this? The average lifespan of people in ancient Rome was between 20 and 30 years. If someone didn’t have a unique calamity before age 10 and lived very cheerfully after that, he would not last until age 47. In the future, the average life expectancy of ordinary people during the Islamic Caliphate in Spain had reached over 35 years. The highest life spans of that time belonged to the class of scientists, who could live to 69 years due to their lifestyle. A few years after the Second World War, the average life expectancy of ordinary people reached 48 years. Now that we are at the beginning of the third millennium, the average human life expectancy in the world has reached 67 years. Well, these numbers did not increase by themselves. The work and effort of scientists have brought us here. The production of healthy drinking water, the improvement of public health, the discovery of various vaccines and antibiotic treatments, the construction of a CT scan machine, and thousands of other developments are all the result of these scientists’ continuous and long work. Now it has come to the point where Google has thought of bringing everyone’s average life to 150 years later.
There is so much talk and talk about the community of doctors that it was right to make fun of them for a while so that they don’t get angry and go away, and I’m speechless. Like in the old days, we become jealous with uncontrollable diarrhea and have an abortion. But my intention in writing this article is something else.
It is evident that those who can maintain their focus in the long term to achieve their goals achieve things that people who jump from one branch to another do not even dream of. The big question and my goal in blacking these lines are: How do you stay focused on your long-term goals with so many distractions?
Focusing means channeling all available attention and energy and putting it to the limit in a specific task in a stable period of time.
Focusing on a short-term goal is relatively easy because you will soon see the results of your work and get motivated. But if you have to work consistently for months, years, or decades to achieve a goal, then you’d be correct to say that it’s hard to focus.
One of the reasons for this difficulty is that in the middle of the work, you remember why you started this work in the first place. Because your main goal is so far away, you need to remember its view, making you lose motivation and ask philosophical questions.
This is why not all people in the world are successful and unable to fill their 6-month paychecks. Because the long-term focus is a critical skill that only some have. But someone who wants to lead a team (now either a team of constitutionalists, patriots, typhus killers, or a group of doctors from an ear, nose, and throat clinic) must inspire himself and his colleagues so that all team members can maintain their focus for a long time. And reach that distant goal.
Use these strategies below to get motivated enough to achieve your long-term goals:
1. Go for goals that are meaningful to you
It may take years to reach your long-term goal. Are you willing to spend all of your time and energy on something that you are not very passionate about?
That’s why you should put your values and dreams on one end of the scale and your long-term goal on the other and start your work when the balance is established between them.
First, set specific long-term goals for essential areas, such as career, family, finances, and education. Then take another look at the list you made. Do you get goosebumps when you see them? Does your blood boil? Are you so fired up about these goals that you want to chase them like a legendary hungry wolf for months or years? Are you doing things related to these goals, or do you want to say the day after tomorrow, “My father was like this or my grandmother was like this”?
If your answer is negative to these questions, cross them off the list right now, or correct their unpleasant parts, so they become pleasant targets. Passion and a strong sense of purpose for someone who wants to set foot on a far and wide path are more obligatory than night bread. So fasten your shoelaces first and then go for a walk.
2. Put your goals on paper
When you are done with the first screening stage, write the selected goals on paper so that they speak to you. That is, write their vocabulary so that you understand why they are essential things. Then stick them in a place where they can be seen continuously.
For example, write them on colored paper and put them in your wallet, or print them and stick them next to your desk. Then, during the day, activate the reminder on your phone to remind you to look at your goals every few minutes and sharpen your focus.
Indeed, you can make a treasure map for yourself! A map in which your long path leads to a treasure chest and your goals are displayed in a picture.
3. Enable your self-adjustment feature
Thomas Bateman and Bruce Berry, during the research they conducted in 2012 and named “long-distance masters,” stated that “self-regulation” (the ability to control emotions and arousals) is the most critical factor in achieving long-term goals. To enable self-regulation, you must practice self-discipline. The same characteristic that makes you work hard and move forward even when you don’t feel like it. In this long journey, there will come times when the world becomes dark before your eyes, and you are ready to wave the white flag in the air. It is the self-discipline that pushes you forward against all difficulties. Another prerequisite for self-regulation is self-efficacy. It means the same belief you have in yourself that you will definitely reach your goal. To cultivate this trait, work on self-confidence and create an interior control room for yourself. (People with an interior control room believe they are responsible for their success.)
4. Set aside time for long-term goals
To achieve long-term goals and stay focused, you must consistently set aside time and work on them. But spending time is more involved than I said. What makes it difficult in the middle is how to divide the time to achieve both short-term and immediate tasks and work on long-term goals.
First, let’s use the Urgency/Importance Matrix tool to determine what you need to do and what you can delay or not do. When you analyze your tasks in this way, you will find free time to devote to activities that are important to you in the long term.
Then, make a coherent list of your short-term and long-term goals, so you know what to do next.
Then start building a chain of habits that effectively achieve your goal. For example, try to get into the habit of waking up early in the morning, reading books about business, or dedicating time from your daily work to activities related to your goals. You may need to break bad habits. Avoid watching TV until 2:00 am or aimlessly browsing the web.
If urgent tasks and distractions keep you from addressing your long-term goals, try setting aside times when you’re less likely to be distracted from working on your plan. For example, if you want to build a six-pack stomach in the long run, but the only place you can get fit at your workplace is inside the stairwell, which is also taken over by smokers, wake up a quarter of an hour earlier in the morning and do 10 swims and 10 sit-ups.
5. Be on the job
It may take decades to reach your goal. So you should appreciate every little progress and be happy to achieve it. Please take a few minutes each day to see how close you are to your goal, then kiss it and leave it on the table.
For bigger goals, you can reward yourself with each milestone you reach to remind you where you are in the rally. When you appreciate small successes, focusing on the long-term goal becomes more effortless.
It will also be easier to stay motivated if you look at your goal as an opportunity to learn something new rather than just a reason to do something. To see this advantage as you progress, don’t think about what you’ve accomplished; think about what you’ve learned that you didn’t know before.
6. Appreciate progress
It may take decades to reach your goal. So you should appreciate every little progress and be happy to achieve it. Please take a few minutes each day to see how closer you are to your goal, then kiss it and leave it on the table.
For bigger goals, you can reward yourself with each milestone you reach to remind you where you are in the rally. When you appreciate small successes, focusing on the long-term goal becomes more manageable.
It will also be easier to stay motivated if you look at your goal as an opportunity to learn something new rather than just a reason to do something. To see this advantage as you progress, don’t think about what you’ve accomplished; think about what you’ve learned that you didn’t know before.