A Stupid Simple Hack To Make More Progress

QUOTE OF THE DAY

HACKING YOUR OWN MIND

551 Words | 2 Min Read

The hack to make more progress.

Give yourself the deserved wins; that's the hack.

When working towards a long-term goal of yours, you can’t help but dread how far away the result is.

It tends to feel like a mountain in the distance, untouchable, and the majority of the time, it's a hard reality to accept that if you want to scale that mountain, you’re going to have to set yourself out on a long, treacherous journey with no guarantee of making it.

That's why most people don’t make it, or even more commonly, don’t even make a start.

Giving yourself the deserved wins is the way to combat that.

Now, instead of having to hold your breath until you get to the top of that mountain, you can breathe every 1,000 steps.

You reward yourself for the progress that you’re making to not only enjoy the journey more but complete it!

These small wins matter more because they are so much more likely to occur compared to the big breakthroughs in the world. If we only waited for the big wins, we would be waiting a long time.

And we would probably quit long before we saw anything tangible come to fruition. What you need instead of big wins is simply the forward momentum that small wins bring.

How does it actually work?

It really is as simple as it sounds: rewarding yourself for putting in the effort and making progress is the process of cognative reinforcement.

Because you are responding positively to the hard work you put in, your brain will naturally want to do that hard work more, therefore making it easier to do so with less friction.

When work feels meaningless, motivation evaporates.

Heres how you can create the perspective of progress in your own life:

1. Creating meaning

Humans have a deep-seated desire to do meaningful work.

Steve Jobs used this to obtain a lot of his high value employees, ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life doing x or do you want a chance to change the world?’ His strategy was successful – people would join Apple because it focused on the meaningfulness of the work that Apple does.

Making progress boosts your professional motivation, but only if the work matters to you.

2. Setting clear and actionable goals

It’s important for leaders to lay out objectives clearly, so you know exactly what you need to accomplish.

The goal should be broken down into smaller, interim milestones, with a focus on early wins to build momentum.

Progress should be tracked to ensure small wins don’t go unnoticed.

3. Removing friction

You want to proactively remove any possible friction that prevents you from working towards your goals; don’t let things start to pile up with an 'oh, I'll deal with it later’ attitude, as it's only going to stunt your progress and make the journey less enjoyable.

4. Broadcasting the progress

One of the most effective things you can do is just broadcast your progress. When you win, let people know that you won.

This is different from tooting your own horn, as instead you’re creating a breadcrum trail of small wins that will amount to big wins.

People love to do this on platforms like LinkedIn, and there's no harm in you doing the same thing.

TAKEAWAYS:

If you want to make consistent and uninterrupted progress, you need to start rewarding yourself for the wins.

Big, small, or micro, if you’ve made progress that deserves to be acknowledged, and if you want to make more, then it's important that you acknowledge it.

You can use this brief framework to do this:

1. Create meaning for your work

2. Set clear and actionable goals

3. Remove any friction

4. Broadcast your progress

BOOK OF THE WEEK ⤵️

The book of the week is ‘Peak’ by Anders Ericsson, a book about the science behind how to hit peak performance and become the best you can possibly be using various methods and principles. Read it HERE

CREATOR OF THE WEEK ⤵️

LESSON OF THE DAY ⤵️

If you had to create a human…what would you put them through to make them tough?

Least likely answer: “a chill life”

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