Starting Small to Achieve Big

When I started this podcast I set the goal of making at least 10 episodes before I see any of the stats- Initially, my goal was to get 10 listeners. Over time, not only did I achieve that but I got a better understanding of how to put together episodes, how to script, Edit and write blogs.

If you have a big goal like, starting a business in 2 months or get 10000 listeners on your podcast by episode 50, or to finish a project, job, task whatever it is, you should start small. Imagine that you need to boil or freeze the ocean how would you do it? The reason why you start small is that you will be able to complete the task, be consistent and make progress at it, and during the process, you will learn whatever your goal is how to do it better step by step. As an example, when I was trying to start a business that required a big initial investment- I had a mentor who saw that I was skipping some steps. He asked me what stage do you think you are on a scale of 1 to 10 in your business plan, I said 2, then he said to me now we are going to go to step 3, not step 4 or 6, step 3 and that step was to survey whether people needed the service. Once that is done then we go to step 4. This is a great way to explain that this journey is gradual, I'm going to learn stuff along that journey that can help me drift the plan in the right direction, this is the same with starting a podcast, a business, a project or even a self-development plan.

A prime example and inspiration for me was Kobe Bryant, he talks about setting small goals in his game for example like focusing on his posture when guarding someone or shooting from a particular spot to be in the best form possible for the next game. This is to increase the chances of him winning that game by being prepared in the best possible way. And one thing he does that I have been using is his recovery method. Which he does after every game and that is to put ice on his knees, calves and shoulders so that he can recover a lot quicker before the next game. By doing this he is trying to improve by 1 per cent every day to help him perform in all types of conditions and at his peak. He does this after winning and losing.

Procrastination comes from Negative Emotions

The other thing I've learned is the reasons why we procrastinate, we procrastinate because of negative emotions and from those emerges more negative emotions, causing a spiral of negative emotions to the point where simple everyday tasks become difficult. By procrastinating, we tend to avoid those negative emotions because we think it makes us feel worse, so the brain distracts us from doing that task. Research done by Shira Pollack and Herres demonstrates that negative emotions motivate procrastination behaviour.

"The current ﬁndings suggest a need for interventions that focus on emotion regulation strategies that help to reduce NA(negative Affects). Teaching students that procrastination may occur in response to distress emphasizes aﬀect regulation over other behavioural changes that may not get to the heart of the problem, such as learning good study habits."

So by understanding how our emotions change towards the activity or the task at hand we can find ways to motivate ourselves by focusing on the bigger picture in addition, to the reasons WHY we started that activity or task.

Here's more to the research if you want to read it.

Shira Pollack & Joanna Herres

Article: Shira Pollack & Joanna Herres (2020): Prior Day Negative Affect InfluencesCurrent Day Procrastination: A Lagged Daily Diary Analysis, Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, DOI:10.1080/10615806.2020.1722573

The link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2020.1722573

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