Teresa Amabile on Track Your Small Wins to Motivte Big Accomplishments

Watched Teresa Amabile on "Track Your Small Wins to Motivate Big Accomplishments" today via 99u.com



Not only her advice is sound and useful. I am re-posting this video mostly for using her as an inspiration for physical and mental fitness to look forward to when women progress with age. According to wiki, she was born in 1949/1950, so she is in her early 60s.

The missing ingredient for success – plan of action

In the previous two blogs (Is it harder to attain success than to maintain it?, Self discipline – 2nd most important aspect of success), I have outlined that the most important aspect for success is to continuously set goals and the 2nd most important one is to have self discipline.

Some people might say “But, but you did say anything about the how.”
As the saying goes when the why becomes clear, the how is not important as it will come automatically.

In other words, if your goal is clear and definite and you have the self discipline not to sway from your goal, then the plan of action will come to you sooner or later.

According to Maxwell Maltz (author of Psycho-Cybernetics), we all have a “Success Mechanism” built into us. However, this mechanism must have a clear-cut goal, objective, or “problem” to work upon. Your plan of action will come forth if you think about your clear-cut goal often. You should not wait to act until your plan of action is perfect. Do not be afraid of making mistakes or discouraged by temporary setbacks. Instead you improve upon your plan of action through trial and error.

We begin with a goal in mind, an end to be achieved. Do you have a clear picture of where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 and 50 years from now? If not, work on it now and this is only the first step towards a fulfilled life.

Self Discipline – the 2nd most important aspect of success

In my last blog “Is it harder to attain success than to maintain it?”, we have established that it is equally hard to maintain success as to attain it. There is no standing still. Success is a continuous journey, as Einstein said it: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
We have also pointed out that the most important aspect of success is to continuously set and re-set goals. However, setting these goals was not enough. We have to work on them.

Therefore we bring about the 2nd most important aspect of success, self discipline or the ability to delay gratification. Unfortunately, it seems that only one third of pre-school children have been taught this skill as illustrated by the video of Joachim de Posada from TED talks “Don't eat the marshmallow yet”.

How do we achieve self discipline?

There are many different ways to help us to achieve self discipline. One way of achieving self discipline is to intelligently cultivate our mind so that only intended actions will spring forth.

Then, we have to remind ourselves our goals constantly. On our way to our destination, there are many distractions we encounter. We must constantly remind ourselves where we are going in order not to get lost. The first emperor of China had himself reminded every day that his destiny was to unite China. So he was able to do unpleasant tasks that were needed to achieve his destiny.

Right now, my focus is health. So I have my Daily Reminder, which is to deal with stress. Then I have a list of daily routines that I tick off after I accomplish each one.

Hope you enjoy reading this article.

Is it harder to attain success than to maintain it?

When it comes to success, most people believe that it is harder to attain it than to maintain it. I believe that it is equally hard to maintain it as to attain it. You can find examples in people who succeed young and hear how often they become dependent on drugs to keep up with their success. Michael Jackson exemplifies how hard it is to maintain one’s success. Another example you can find is from people who lose weight successfully just to gain back a few months down the road. It is not that easy to maintain success.

As Richard St. John said it, “Success is not a one way street. Success is a continuous journey.”

Most people whether consciously or unconsciously know this. Therefore, the fear of success kicks in. If you do not succeed, there would not be any pressure to maintain the success. The fear of failure is pretty much the same thing. If you do not succeed, you cannot fail. It is like; if you do not take the test, you cannot fail. You can go through adult life without taking any tests.

How do we then, overcome the fear?

One way to do it is to not focus on the success. We focus instead on what we want to do. If you love to do something, it is enjoyable even if you do it poorly. After doing it over a long period of time, you probably get very good at it, and success comes eventually. However, it is not easy to find out what one loves to do most. So far, I do not think that I have found out my singular passion yet.

Do not despair. If you are like me, focus instead on what you do not want to do. I know absolutely for sure that I do not want to go to work (work in this sense is defined as 9 to 5 on salary or wage). In order not to work, I had to work (and convince my companion to do the same) intensively for 7 years. We both remembered clearly the conversation in the early 90s’. I said to Richard that we should work for 7 to 10 years and save $100,000 and buy a small cottage in the country and an old truck. We would then make our living selling some kind of crafts. So far we have achieved more than what we have set out to do. Richard quit his work in 2002 and I quit mine in 2003. We are living in a semi-country setting and Richard drives a relatively new truck. I am selling beaded jewelry through C-Cassia. January to March every year, we leave Montreal to stay in tropical Sanya in China. Last year, we took a week detour in San Francisco and will do the same this year.

It is possible to do what you do not want to do as long as there is a time span, in my case it is 7 years. Most children know that. How many of them like to do what their parents tell them to do? They do them because they know (think) once they leave home they can do whatever they want.

We are now living our dream life because the goal we set in the past. Our new goal right now is to form habits that will allow us to live healthy and gracefully, which I shall talk about it another time.

Therefore, my conclusion is that the most important aspect of attaining and maintaining success is to continuously set and re-set goals.