Last week I wrote about Outcome goals and process goals.
This week, I’m going to expand on some process goal related thoughts
That is — The Power of Persistence
Being persistent can take you far in life.
It can get you noticed, hired, promoted — it typically results in becoming extraordinarily efficient at something.
It can mostly likely take you where you want to go.
The benefits to being persistent in life really are pretty goddamn impressive.
When you’re persistent, great things can happen.
You Build Momentum
I sat down this morning at 8:00 AM to write this article.
At first it was difficult. I had a hard time getting started and finding the voice I was looking for for this article.
But as I got going, it got easier.
Sentences started to flow into my brain and out through my fingertips with more and more ease as I continued to write.
I was building momentum.
As I keep writing, the words are coming to me naturally easier and easier.
After I start writing, I pick up momentum and it becomes easier — Once I have enough momentum, I get lost in the process and in the thoughts I’m having and writing about.
Tai Lopez talks about how a lot of things in life are like pushing a boulder up a hill.
It’s hard at first.
You’re pushing and pushing, you can’t even see the top of the hill.
But you keep going because you know the top is up there somewhere.
And once you get to the top, the boulder becomes much less of a burden as the incline starts to level off.
And on the backside of the hill, the boulder even rolls down the hill on its own.
But we need to be persistent with pushing that boulder up the hill, even when we can’t see the top.
The top is still there.
And there’s only one way to get there. Being persistent with pushing that boulder up the hill.
This morning, when I first sat down to write I was pushing the boulder up the hill at first, but as I got going it started to come easier to me.
How It Relates to Losing Weight
I’ve talked before about how Habit is the #1 most effective tool for losing weight.
Related: The Power of Habit For Losing Weight
Habit and persistence go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Sticking to a habit, or continuing to do something time and time again on a consistent basis, is naturally practicing persistence.
They’re almost one in the same.
If you consistently achieve a caloric deficit on a daily basis, you’ll lose weight.
That’s being persistent. That’s performing a habit.
And when you do something over and over again like that, you become pretty good at it.
You gain confidence in your abilities as you start to see results — that’s like getting to the top of the hill with the boulder. The slope is starting to level out for you and things success seems like its coming to you easier.
When Jerry Seinfeld used to write an X on the calendar each day when he would complete a new comedy sketch. He had the mentality of having an X on the calendar every single day.
That was his way of persistently performing his habit of creating a comedy sketch every single day — and as a result, he became good at it.
Have that same persistence,
If you’re trying to lose weight, get a calendar.
Each day you achieve your calorie deficit, draw an X on the calendar.
The Power is in The Process
Persistence and Habit are also very synonymous with process goals, which I mentioned earlier that I talked about last week.
A habit is very much like a process, which you persistently perform or do.
In the example I gave a moment ago with the Jerry Seinfeld method, the process goal would be to achieve a calorie deficit each day.
Over time, that daily deficit would result in substantial weight loss.
Remember that success doesn’t happen overnight, but rather is the result of consistently showing up and making small improvements each day.
Every X that you mark off on the calendar is a day that you achieved a calorie deficit — a day that you got closer to your long term weight loss goal.
Each day you’re getting marginally closer to your goal — and those small margins compound and accumulate over time.
There’s a really great article written by James Clear about making marginal gains and the idea of improving everything by 1% for large a compounding effect.
By persistently achieving a calorie deficit each day and putting that X up on the calendar, you’re making marginal gains towards your goal each day that will compound over time and add up to something much greater.
Life, Not Just Weight Loss
This goes for just about everything in life, not just weight loss.
History has taught us again and again that persistence prevails.
Thomas Edison failed at inventing the lightbulb over 1000 times.
But he never gave up — he was persistent.
He focused on the process of tweaking something and trying something new each time the previous lightbulb didn’t work.
Every time he failed he viewed it as one step closer — since each time he was eliminating one possibility.
Edison knew that if he kept on trying, he would eventually have the right design.
And sure enough he did.
Another great example — Steve Jobs.
Imagine if Steve Jobs had given up on Apple when it was struggling and let Bill Gates and PC’s rule the world?
Imagine a world without iphones and instead everyone had a Droid or Galaxy…
#TeamiPhone
Steve Jobs would have been doing the entire world a disservice if he didn’t pursue his dreams with Apple and make it into the company it is today.
It would’ve been selfish for Steve Jobs to give up on Apple.
Be Persistent About Anything That’s Important To You
If there’s something in life that you really want to achieve — weight loss or otherwise — be persistent about it.
If it’s really something important to you then be persistent about improving and taking it to the next level.
If there’s something you really want in life, chances are that nobody’s just going to hand it to you — you’ve got to reach out and grab it.
And by “reach out and grab it,” I mean “create a habit that you can persistently perform that will get you closer to achieving your goal. And work hard as hell at that habit to continuously better yourself.”
I guess that’s a little different.
Another great Aristotle quote for you to take away from this:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”
So go be excellent, and be persistent about it.
Originally published at www.andrewschutt.com on December 26, 2016.