Are you a good starter or a good finisher?
I tend to be a great starter.
For example, whenever I’m attempting something hard, at the beginning I feel energetic and my self talk is typically “Yeah, I can do this, let’s go!”
If you’re into walking or running, you can probably identity with what happens in the first few minutes of a long walk or run, especially if there are some early uphill stages.
You’re feeling good, and confident that you will reach whatever destination you’ve decided on.
After the first few minutes though, things begin to change.
As you go a little further and more effort is required to keep going, you start to think “Hmmm, this becoming much harder than I thought right now. When’s this gonna be over?”
Despite the difficulty though, for whatever reason you decide keep going, but there’s definitely a real mental (and physical) struggle to continue. It probably wouldn’t take much of an excuse at any stage now for you to quit.
But have you noticed? A funny thing begins to happen when you start to close in on the finish line.
When you have about 10% left to go, you often pick up speed and finish off the project.
The key – at least for me – is to get to and through the “hump” in the middle as quickly as possible. If I can get momentum, I can usually follow through all the way to the end.
Here’s the thing though… this is almost entirely a mental process. As long as you know the route you want to take and the result you want to create, putting in the effort often only represents about 10% of the journey.
Everything else is mental.
Whether you’re writing a sales letter, or running eight kilometres, or trying to lose 5 kilos, it’s all mental. It all starts in your head.
Regardless of what it is. Whatever you want to do, it’s mental.
You’ve got to win the mind game before you can win the external game.
You must believe you can be the person who can get the results. You must believe you can accomplish what you’ve set out to do.
I read somewhere once that you’ll never think about quitting if you focus on competing. You can’t think about quitting if you’re focused on winning.
That means if you focus on the prize, the result, or the payoff that you want to achieve, you can’t think about quitting.
You just can’t do it. You can’t hold two thoughts at the same time. Either you’re focused on winning or you’re focused on quitting. You can’t do both!
So, I think the secret is to focus on the result, the outcome, the dream you had of achieving when you first started out.
Do you agree?