Placement + Patience.
Greetings Ladies and Gents,
I pray that your day is going well and this post finds you in a good place overall. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed, but we have swiftly found ourselves already a quarter into 2025. We come into the new year feeling like we have all the time in the world ahead of us to get countless things done, and next thing you know the halfway mark is a blink away. But it's ok, because each of these new entries will act as a status check and also provide a fresh opportunity to get back on track! With that said, let's get to today's topic at hand.
When it comes to our various goals and aspirations, a concept that's typically connected to them is our motivation. The level of motivation we walk around with seems like it's stronger or amplified during the beginning of the year when we're feeling more anxious to take on the world's challenges and it fades out a bit in the final months. However, what's interesting is that regardless of just how motivated we believe we are to reach a goal, many times that's still not enough for us to even get up to make an attempt. I might tell myself 4 hundred ways in my head that I want to drink a certain amount of water every day and never get closer to doing it. That's because as much emphasis as we put on motivation, the placement of things and environment we operate in matter that much more to success.
With my water example, if I want to consume a lot more water in my every day life but don't even keep any water bottles in my fridge or kitchen in general, I'm not helping my chances. I am telling myself one thing, but the manner in which I am crafting my environment is going totally against the goal and real change is improbable. Let's take this idea of placement even further. Say you do have a pack of water bottles in your kitchen and you're still not meeting your intake goals. If you know that you spend the majority of your time in your bedroom or another space in your home, try strategically placing full water bottles in those spaces. Limited time in your kitchen could mean limited opportunities for you to even lay eyes on the prize(water bottles), and that simple change is more powerful than you think. Give yourself a real chance to excel.
A second example that may feel relatable is the goal of reading more books. Now adding several books to your online cart for future purchase is one thing, which we will call a motion. But what you're aiming for is real action, which would be the purchase of said books and bringing them into your home space. Do not underestimate the difference between the motion and action because one leads to real behavior change and the other is simply dressed up procrastination. Once you have the books you plan to read in your home, you want to take a similar strategy to the water bottles. Yes, having a study or office stacked with books in it may look cool for aesthetic purposes. But if your ultimate plan is to get into the real mindset of reading them, they need to be placed where you spend the most time. I know for myself, I've learned that I like to read a chapter or 2 before I go to bed. So what do I do? You guessed it. I place my current book on the nightstand right next to my bed so that it's literally in arm's reach for me. I'm leaving myself with as little excuses as possible to do what I told myself I was going to do. Don't make your goals harder than they need to be. That's just silly.
Just because you have a goal or dream to fulfill doesn't mean you have to place unnecessary obstacles in the way of it in order to make the journey that much more of a challenge. I promise it will be just as special to meet those marks while making things easier on yourself along the way. It sounds good and proper to say we were extra motivated to get something done and then we followed through with it. But more times than not, it's the environment we find ourselves in and the placement of the things around us in said environment that make the difference between achieving and lost opportunities. Make things as simple as possible and put yourself in actual positions to win. You'll be surprised how much more time and space that opens up for you to do other great things.
