You are the captain of your ship of your life. And the great captain has destination in his mind.
We all have some goals in our life. To be achieved in future. On which our happiness or freedom depends. Goals are our north star, giving us direction of where we want to be in the future. But sometimes, its connotation of the distant future is what makes them harder to achieve. We get demotivated because we find it hard to realize that distant future.
We have to change our relationship with goals. Instead of calling it goals, we should consider these as commitments. Our relationship with these is something different as compared to goals. We try harder to hit our commitments. It is like a paradigm shift that changes our relationship with it. When we are committed to something, even we fall behind, we work harder to fulfill it. So consider your goals as your commitments with your future self.
To remain motivated, we have to put our skin in the game, like our survival is dependent on it. One strategy is to have Commitment Devices in place. It is like a penalty system. We can put some money on the line and penalize ourselves if we do not fulfill our commitments. Like if I don’t lose 10Kg weight by year-end. I will give 1000 bucks to charity. Like if I don’t show up at the gym five days a week. I will give 100 dollars to my friend. These sorts of commitment devices help us stay motivated and force us to hit our goals.
Remember this, you are the captain of your ship of your life. And the great captain has destination in his mind. He already know how important it is to reach a destination and not to fail at it.
“To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.” — John Glenn
