Progress is the goal.

When I was younger I never set goals, I didn’t like the idea of them. There was no philosophy around it but as I’ve matured a little bit I’ve realised why.

Well, I didn't necessarily never set them, but when I did, I was never able to achieve them. This made me feel guilty, lowered my self-esteem and discouraged me from ever setting further goals. So I went through my early 20s with essentially no goal setting.

But the truth was, I just didn't know how to actually set and execute on them. I would do the classic → "This year, I will achieve 'X'." I would rely on that initial motivation to work towards the goal, but that soon wore off. Because I couldn't see any progression due to me not tracking it, I would get discouraged and let the goal slip out of my sight.

Here is what I have learned since.

The first step was for me to set more specific goals, as specific as possible. For example, in the gym, instead of my goal being "to get stronger," it would be "I want to be able to squat X amount by X date."

The second step I took was breaking my overall goal into smaller, more achievable goals. Rather than just lifting and hoping to reach my desired weight, I aimed to increase my squat weight by 5kg every week, or whatever the equivalent may be.

The third step is to track progress. Habit trackers, notepads, diaries, just write your progress somewhere. This is a vital part of the process, as it helps you stay on track and maintain progress throughout the journey. And allowed me to see progression throughout whatever journey I was on. As the saying goes, "You can't improve what you don't measure.”

Fall in love with the work. Not the goal.

The actions themselves are the real progress, and what keeps the life force within us to keep striving. What is also important to note that the quality of the actions will vary widely, but this is not important. You might have a terrible workout or you might finish your newsletter and not be completely happy with it (lol).

But it does not really matter whether it is good or not. What matters is the doing itself. The fact that I wrote and sent it out on time means that progress has been achieved and that to me is more important than how good the actual newsletter is. Progression over perfection.

It is a heck of a lot easier to keep going when you treat every bit of progression as a win.

Lots of love.

Koko :)

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