Take a look at your long-term goals. Do they
seem far away? Distant? It kind of lessens your motivation to do it, doesn’t
it? Whether it’s something as big as earning a college degree or losing weight,
or as little as getting your house clean. If you look at these daunting tasks
step-by-step instead of looking at the big picture, you can not only
increase your motivation, but your output and success at the task as well.
Proven by Science!
In a 1981 Stanford University study, two groups
of children were given 42 pages of math problems to solve. One group was told
to have them all done within seven sessions. This group wasn’t motivated to get
the task done, and after their answers were reviewed, researches found only 40%
of their answers to be correct.
The other group was given the same problems, but
was told to do six pages per session, across the same seven sessions. They were
more motivated, finished the work more quickly, and got 80% of them correct.
Breaking the problems up into baby steps really worked for them!
What about adults?
Just because that experiment was on people who
could count their age on their fingers, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work on you!
It certainly worked on me, Darryl Hicks. I wouldn’t be the CEO of two Tungsten
companies if it didn’t! Ten years ago, if you had told me to run two companies
at the same time, I would have told you it was impossible. But tackling the
challenge step-by-step turned out to be the best move I could have made.
Consider any sort of health goal. People who try
to cut out something unhealthy from their diet (like sugar or carbs) end up
losing interest in the first week or two, because they jump right into it.
Instead, consider substitutions. Substitute a can of soda or that second coffee
with a glass of water. Instead of that brownie, a piece of fruit. Once you get
into the habit of eating better, it becomes easy; but you must enter the habit
one step at a time.
Taking things by baby steps works with all areas
of life. To get to the other side of that long road, it’s faster if you take
small steps than it is to take giant leaps and end up falling.
If you have any questions, visit me at DarrylHicks Tungsten, and I would be glad to help.
Another good article! I didn't know there was a study done on this. I guess you can count on Tungsten to do the research, huh?
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