What You Need To Stay Motivated on Your Projects and Goals

This week it’s all about your goals and staying focused so you actually get round to completing them   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Productivity Masterclass | Create Your Own Custom Workflow Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Script Episode 130 Hello and welcome to episode 130 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show. I hope you are faring well during these difficult and unprecedented times. Disruptions to our lives like this do not come around very often, fortunately, yet with anything bad, I always like to see the silver lining and in this instance the opportunity to step back a little, review what we want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish it is an opportunity not to be missing.  I’ve written and spoken in the past about the need to stress test any kind of system you build for yourself, and now is a great chance to test your system. How does it cope when you are thrown out of your normal, day to day routines? How does it manage when you are surrounded by interruptions and demands from family members? Does it still work?  These questions can really help you to find that balance and find the best way for your system to be set up. Now this week, I have a goals related question. We haven’t answered one of these for a while. This week it’s about staying focused on a goal and how to avoid being distracted and or lose interest in it once you have started taking the necessary action to make it happen.  Now before that, I would like to remind you that if you have not done so already I have a FREE online course that will teach you the concepts of COD - That’s collect, Organise and Do.  Collecting your tasks, commitments, ideas and events into a place you trust, spending a little time each day organising what you collected and the rest of the time doing the work you have identified needs to be done. It’s simple, it’s powerful and it works.  Details of the course are in the show notes. Okay, it’s now time for me to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Toby. Toby asks: Hi Carl, I had a number of goals and projects that I was so excited to start this year and yet after a few weeks I lost interest and stopped working on them. I think I have a problem with motivation as this has always happened to me. Is there anything I can do to stay focused on them? Hi Toby, thank you for your question and I can reassure you you are not alone. Struggling to stay focused on your goals and projects is hard. To achieve goals you are going to have to leave your comfort zone and that requires some big changes to your way of life.  Completing projects can also be hard if you don't have a boss or colleagues keeping you accountable. It’s much easier to slip back into our normal way of doing things and find excuses about why we cannot achieve a goal or complete a project when we do not have someone keeping us accountable.  And that’s something you need to be very alert to. The excuses your brain will come up with that prevents you from making the necessary changes you need to make to achieve your goal or complete a project.  And boy our brains are fantastic at coming up with excuses about why you are so different from everyone else. Why you cannot write a blog post, why you can’t apply for that promotion or why you cannot run a 10km road race.  What I’ve found is whenever a person says “I can’t” the vast majority of the time it’s got nothing to do with a lack of ability or qualifications or money. It’s got everything to do with a reluctance to make the necessary changes one needs to make to achieve that goal or to complete that project.  The “ah but