The Long Run

In The daily from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin shares,

“Every single day is a lot of days. It’s easy to look at the long run and lull yourself into skipping a day now and then.”

I am currently working on a big long-term project and I have put myself on a strict schedule. Of course, this takes self-discipline because it is easy to say, “I have time. I can skip today and work double tomorrow.” This sounds good until tomorrow comes and I look back wishing that I didn’t skip a day. Sometimes it is not realistic to think that working double the next day equals the work you do regularly.

When I am trying to lose weight, I might eat lots of junk food today and then tell myself I will eat even less tomorrow but that really doesn’t equal out.

When I’m cleaning my house, I try to clean one room each day but if I skip it one day, I need to do two room the next. Unfortunately, I skip a lot of days and then find myself overwhelmed on the weekend.

We try to exercise walk every day but sometimes life gets in the way and it isn’t possible. If I skip one day, I try to make sure I walk the next. I don’t like to skip more than two days in a row or it is likely that I will skip a lot of days after that.

I’m the kind of person that makes a schedule and I just stick to it.

When I want to skip a day, it makes it easier to skip the next and even easier to skip the next until I’ve totally abandoned my schedule.

I’m sure that my students can come up with many excuses why they can’t do something. Sometimes they would rather come up with excuses than to work. I need to help them see the big picture and the end result. I need to help them see that in the long run, it will be worth the day to day grind. Even though it isn’t easy, there will positive results as long as we push ourselves day to day.

All the usual clichés come to mind:

·      Take one day at a time.

·      Take one step at a time.

·      Take one bite at a time.

·      Slow and steady win the race.

We need to do what needs to be done every day and then be glad for the work we do. Appreciate that the small steps will help us reach our goal. By putting off each step only prolongs us reaching the goal and we may never have success.

How do you motivate yourself to take a step every day towards your goal? Please share.

Photo by Esther Tuttle on Unsplash