Procrastinate Much? Focus On Starting Not Finishing
SOURCE CREDIT: Author DONALD LATUMAHINA Lifeoptimizer.org
How to Achieve Goals Through Persistent Starting
Have you ever feel overwhelmed while trying to achieve a goal? I have, and I guess you have too. That’s why it’s important that you have a good strategy. Otherwise you might not achieve your goals, or will only achieve them through unnecessary stress and frustration.
One good strategy I found is persistent starting in The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. Here is what the book says about it:
“…essentially, all large tasks are completed in a series of starts… Keep on starting, and finishing will take care of itself.”
In essence, persistent starting means that you shouldn’t fill your mind with how big a project is. That will only make you feel overwhelmed. Instead, just focus on starting on it every day. By doing that, you will eventually finish the project and achieve your goal.
Click Image To Read Reviews and More
Why Persistent Starting Is Powerful
There are three reasons why persistent starting is powerful:
1. It helps you reduce stress. Instead of filling your mind with how big a project is, you fill it with the simple task that you need to do today. That makes the burden much lighter.
2. It helps you overcome procrastination. One big reason why we procrastinate is that we feel overwhelmed by what we face. As a result, we hesitate to take action. This principle makes the task feel manageable.
3. It allows you to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges. By just continually starting, you will eventually achieve a big goal. The whole journey might seem daunting, but by going through it one step at a time, you will eventually reach your destination.
A simple example in my life is when I tried to finish reading the Bible. It seemed like a huge task. If I focused on how hard it would be, it’s unlikely that I would ever finish it. But I focused instead on reading four chapters a day without thinking about how far I still had to go. With this attitude, I eventually finished reading it within a year.
How to Apply Persistent Starting
Here are four steps to apply persistent starting:
Click Image to Read Reviews and More
1. Know your destination.
First of all, you need to know where you are going. If you don’t, you will only wander aimlessly. So set a clear goal. What is it that you are trying to achieve? How will success look?
2. Plan the route.
Now that you know your destination, you need to plan how to get there. A good way to do that is to set some milestones. These milestones serve two purposes:
They help you stay on track. You will know if you deviate from the right path.
They give you small victories along the way. Having a sense of accomplishment is important to stay motivated. By having milestones, you can get it along the way, not just at the end.
3. Keep doing the next simple task.
After planning the route, you should figure out the next simple task to do. What can you do today that will move you toward your destination? After you find it, then allocate time to do it.
4. Adjust your course as necessary.
You need to be careful not to go off course. So regularly check where you are (for example, by comparing your position with your next milestone) and adjust your course as necessary.
***
Persistent starting is a simple strategy, but it can help you achieve your goals with minimum stress and frustration. It works for me, and I hope it will work for you too.
Related articles
Multi-Taskers may Muddle More!
The people who multitask the most are the ones who are worst at it. That’s the surprising conclusion of researchers at Stanford University, who found multitaskers are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do less multitasking.
“The huge finding is, the more media people use the worse they are at using any media. We were totally shocked,” Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford’s communications department, said in a telephone interview.
The researchers studied 262 college undergraduates, dividing them into high and low multitasking groups and comparing such things as memory, ability to switch from one task to another and being able to focus on a task. Their findings are reported in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When it came to such essential abilities, people who did a lot of multitasking didn’t score as well as others, Nass said.
Still to be answered is why the folks who are worst at multitasking are the ones doing it the most.
It’s sort of a chicken-or-egg question.
“Is multitasking causing them to be lousy at multitasking, or is their lousiness at multitasking causing them to be multitaskers?” Nass wondered. “Is it born or learned?”
In a society that seems to encourage more and more multitasking, the findings have social implications, Nass observed. Multitasking is already blamed for car crashes as several states restrict the use of cell phones while driving. Lawyers or advertisers can try to use irrelevant information to distract and refocus people to influence their decisions.
In the study, the researchers first had to figure out who are the heavy and light multitaskers. They gave the students a form listing a variety of media such as print, television, computer-based video, music, computer games, telephone voice or text, and so forth.
The students were asked, for each form of media, which other forms they used at the same time always, often, sometimes or never.
The result ranged from an average of about 1.5 media items at the low end to more than four among heavy multitaskers.
Then they tested the abilities of students in the various groups.
For example, ability to ignore irrelevant information was tested by showing them a group of red and blue rectangles, blanking them out, and then showing them again and asking if any of the red ones had moved.
The test required ignoring the blue rectangles. The researchers thought people who do a lot of multitasking would be better at it.
“But they’re not. They’re worse. They’re much worse,” said Nass. The high media multitaskers couldn’t ignore the blue rectangles. “They couldn’t ignore stuff that doesn’t matter. They love stuff that doesn’t matter,” he said.
Perhaps the multitaskers can take in the information and organize it better? Nope.
“They are worse at that, too,” Nass said.
“So then we thought, OK, maybe they have bigger memories. They don’t. They were equal” with the low multitaskers, he added.
Finally, they tested ability to switch from one task to another by classifying a letter as a vowel or consonant, or a number as even or odd. The high multitaskers took longer to make the switch from one task to the other.
This particularly surprised the researchers, considering the need to switch from one thing to another in multitasking.
“They couldn’t help thinking about the task they weren’t doing,” lead author Eyal Ophir said. “The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can’t keep things separate in their minds.”
The next step is to look into what multitaskers are good at and see if the difference between high and low multitaskers is one of “exploring” versus “exploiting” information.
“High multitaskers just love more and more information. Their greatest thrill is to get more,” he said. On the other hand, “exploiters like to think about the information they already have.”
The research was funded by Stanford Major Grant, Volkswagen Grant, Nissan Grant and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant.
//
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org
About Peter
Peter Brown BHMS (Hons) MPsychClin MAPS
I’m a Clinical Psychologist and have a private practice and consultancy in Brisbane Australia. I have 24 years experience in child, adult and family clinical psychology. I have a wonderful wife and three kids.
I am co-founder of Christian Wholeness Counselling Services.
I like researching issues of the brain & mind, reading and seeking out new books and resources for myself and my clients. I thought that others might be interested in some of what I have found also, hence this blog…
Subscribe to My Blog Posts & Updates
-
Blog Surfer
Alphainventions
Recent Comments
Peter H Brown Clinical Psychologist 