We always love the idea of a magical fix, who wouldn’t want their problems solved with a wave of a wand, a single pill, or in the chiropractic profession a single adjustment. The interesting thing about how our brains work with reward systems is that simple victories give us a improved positive mental state, re enforce our will power and motivate us to continue. Those simple consistent victories can turn the snowflake into an avalanche of change. Setting small challenges at the start of any new goal or change in your life, challenges that are easy to accomplish, not only builds our confidence in our new adventure but re enforces our positive mental state about the choices we make. Having a mentor, coach or someone who is living the goals you have set is another great way to move in the direction of change. We become the composite of the 6 people we spend the most time with. Our encouragement is to be the lowest rung on the pole in that situation, be motivated by the people you are around, not the person who is always having to be the example.
Looking at the works of people who specialize in motivation we see common themes in what leads to achieving goals and what leads to progressively bigger achievements. Set a daily base minimum when it comes to what you are going after. For example, if your goal is to get in shape set your daily base minimum in an easy to accomplish place, whether it is walking 10, 100, 1000, or 10000 steps or 10 push ups, 10 sit ups and 10 squats. As you achieve your goals daily you will naturally want to do more some days and that is where the magic happens. When you start building a new habit and it becomes re enforced with success you will find some days you are motivated to do more, when you take advantage of that energy it builds in you and will grow. After a few sessions of doing more than you set out to do you will find your old daily minimum is set too low for the new you and should be bumped up.
The people around us usually notice the end result and not the many little positive choices in between which almost always makes successes and failures look instantaneous. The end results are fun but how we change in the mean time is where the fun stories come from.
