Hello dear reader,
You can listen to this post from my podcast ‘Heart of Living’, or you may just read it.
The new year is just around the corner. It is a beautiful chance to build new habits, start afresh and work on bettering ourselves.
12 brand new months! Untouched! Isn’t it wonderful?
At the start of the year, we are all full of enthusiasm.
We set big goals of being healthy, of being debt free, of hitting the gym regularly for an hour every day and working on all those big goals that have been kept pending at the back of our minds.
And well, there are also some of us who don’t like to set any goals at all thinking every new year is ‘the same me- the same old sh*t’ year after year.
Some of us are just too tired to set any goals because we think we’re not going to reach them anyway.
Some of us don’t want to get discouraged, or rather, we are too scared to get discouraged and demotivated.
We hate to make ourselves go through those feelings of feeling bad, so we let the new year’s enthusiasm skip and carry on like how we used to.
And so some of us decide to carry on like nothing’s new because the burden of not following through will be too big.
If you’re feeling the same, I just want to tell you here, that if you’ve decided that the year is already going to be the same, can it be any different?
I mean, we’re so powerful that if we decide in our thoughts that we’re not going to make anything happen, then actually nothings gonna happen.
I am reminded of the quote, “Nothing changes if nothing changes“.
We’re so powerful that if we think we’re not, we’re not. And if we think we are, we are.
But there is something more I want to tell you here, and this will help you go a long way in sticking to your habits or your new year’s resolution, whatever they are.
And it is this- Focus on the Bare Minimum.
Why Focusing on the Bare Minimum matters
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Too often we get too excited and too highly optimistic about reaching new heights and setting big goals.
While that is good and setting big goals is great, we all know how easy it is to set goals, but so hard to follow through.
It is easy to say I’m going to work out for one hour every day.
It’s easy to say I’m going to write a book this year.
It’s easy to say I will start a YouTube channel this year.
But we all know how hard it is to simply start, and more so, to keep on with it after we start.
And then, like I already said, there are some of us who are too scared to be discouraged so we don’t even set goals or have any dreams.
But let this new year be different.
If you want to go a long way on your journey, I want to tell you just one thing-
Don’t be only concerned with setting a high target and goal, but instead set a bare minimum goal.
This helps so much in not only when you’re just starting out on your journey of building new habits, but also if you’re trying to show more consistency in your efforts.
What is something you’d really like to start this year?
Do you want to start reading a lot of books?
You might think you should start by reading 100 pages every day, but more importantly, is to set a bare minimum goal of reading at least 2 pages every day.
Do you want to finally start writing your book this year or finish off a research project?
You might want to set a target of writing 2000 words each day, which is great, but also important it is to set yourself a bare minimum goal of writing at least 500 words each day.
Setting a bare minimum target or goal is much more important than keeping a big target because it is what will help us follow through and most importantly, it helps us to show up.
Importance of focusing on the bare minimum
When you’re starting a new goal or a new habit, start by focusing on the bare minimum.
And here is why I say so:
Doing the bare minimum is easy. You can’t say no to it.
It’s important that your mind doesn’t feel intimidated by what you’re trying to do.
When you set a really high target too soon, it’s easy to get demotivated and your mind will start looking for excuses and will try its best to convince you to skip it.
You see, our mind likes to take things easy, and when you make things easy for your mind, it will support you wonderfully.
By focusing on the bare minimum, you make it easy for your mind and your lazy self to not get scared and think that you can’t do it.
By focusing on the bare minimum, you allow yourself to break down your big goals, take it slow and not feel intimidated by your goals which is the number one reason why we quit.
So focus on doing just the bare minimum when you’re just starting out and slowly grow from there.
Once you feel you’ve gone a bit farther on your journey, and feel you can take on more, there will still be days when you think you just can’t do it anymore.
There will still be days when your mind will try to convince you that it’s not worth it and that you’re not going anywhere with it.
On such days as those, allow yourself to just do the bare minimum.
If you had set a target to work out for 1 hour, but couldn’t, just do the bare minimum and stretch your body.
If you had set a target to study for 5 hours, but couldn’t, just do the bare minimum and sit for 10-20 minutes.
You don’t have to reach all your targets all the time, and the truth is, you can’t all the time, but you can definitely allow yourself to do just the bare minimum.
Ask yourself, ‘What is the bare minimum I can do to at least show up every day?’
Showing up with the bare minimum is so much better than quitting it all out because you couldn’t reach your maximum.
Focus on the bare minimum and you’ll see yourself getting better at sticking to good habits, sustaining your efforts and being consistent at what you truly want to do and be.
Make the journey easy. Make the journey fun. It’s a long way.
This much for today!
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