Are you ready for March Mental Hack number 2? The second hack for the month is: stop moving the finish line!
There is no sure-fire way to kill your momentum and mindset than to move the finish line. Yet we do it to ourselves regularly.
What does “moving the finish line” look like?
You sit down on Monday, you create your to-dos, your targets, your tasks, etc. for the week. You say to yourself, “when I get these things executed, these projects completed, this work done, I will have had a fantastic week.”
Look, I love this planning.
Why?
Because if we don’t have priorities and have clarity on the most important aspects of the work that must get done, we probably won’t get it done. So planning it out and setting clear targets of work to be done is outstanding.
Where this goes off-kilter is when we get to Thursday or Friday and we say to ourselves, “Well, I didn’t add enough to my list this week, it was an easy week.” Or, “I didn’t really perform at the highest level so that’s not celebration-worthy.” Or, “I did the work but it just wasn’t good enough.” that’s just not good enough.
Instead of celebrating ourselves for the hard work done, the tasks executed, the targets hit, we add QUALIFIERS to the work AFTER the fact.
These qualifiers were not established when we started, but we add them after the work is done.
Now can you achieve those qualifiers after the fact?
You sure can’t.
What does this do?
It kills our positive momentum!
Those of us who live in this cycle never celebrate ourselves or our work because we tell ourselves there’s nothing to celebrate.
Stop sabotaging yourself!
Your work is good enough. You have done an excellent job. If you want to add qualifiers, do it when you set the targets.
Being detailed, clear, adding specifics, etc. are all perfect qualifiers to add when you are setting your targets.
It’s like clarifying the rules of a game.
That said, you can’t win the game, then change the rules AFTER you have already played such that the new rules make you the loser. Would you ever want to play the game again after that happened?
Probably not. But this is what we do to ourselves when it comes to our work.
Momentum is necessary to keep us going and help us strive forward. Celebrations need to happen to help us appreciate ourselves. Stop sabotaging yourself!
Could this be the reason you don’t look forward to Mondays? Is it “just another week of failure on the horizon?” Something to think about.
Be Legendary!