Are you conditioned to letting yourself down?

Are you afraid that you don’t have what it takes to follow-through?

Do you doubt yourself as soon as you set a goal, thinking that you’re going to quit before you even start?

Just me? Hopefully not.

I think that a TON of us deal with this issue. And it’s frustrating!

It’s frustrating to feel like you lack discipline, drive, or willpower to consistently make progress towards the goals you care about the most.

Especially when it seems that other people possess the ability to stay laser-focused on what they want, and they get to reap the benefits of that work.

So where’s the issue?

We’re too conditioned to breaking promises we make to ourselves.

And every time we say we’re going to do something (even just thinking it to ourselves), but we don’t do it, it erodes away our sense of trust with ourselves.

It creates a reputation of doubt inside our mind.

You can liken it to knowing someone who always says, “Let’s totally hang out!” But they never make an effort to follow-through. Eventually you stop believing that they’re going to do anything.

We do this to ourselves with our goals, dreams, desires, and wants.

Looking at it from this perspective, it completely makes sense why we get so frustrated or discouraged when another week, month, or year goes by and we still haven’t taken action toward our dreams and goals.

What’s the solution?

Belief in yourself comes from trust and confidence in yourself.

You build trust and confidence by keeping your promises to yourself.

You’ve got to build a NEW reputation with yourself that is in-line with who you want to be and what you want to achieve.

The key is to START SMALL.

Depending on how bad your issue is, you’ll have a different starting point. For the sake of 99% of us, I’m going to give advice to the lowest common denominator.

Make a TINY commitment and stick to it, every day.

Come up with something you can do each day that is STUPIDLY SIMPLE. It should be so easy that you can get it done super quick, even if you remember at 11:59pm.

I call these Little Wins.

The idea is that by being consistent with your little wins, you can build up a stockpile of proof to stand on that allows you to say,

“I AM a consistent person! I DO keep promises to myself!…
SEE, I’ve done [YOUR LITTLE WIN] every day this week!.”

My little win is pushups.

I’ve done at least 25 pushups a day, every day, since January 1, 2017. That’s 908 days of consistency! (As of today’s date)

That’s 908 reasons that prove to myself that I am a consistent and dedicated person.

Another little win of mine is that every time I look in a mirror, instead of criticizing myself, I look myself in the eyes and tell myself:

“I love myself. I am proud of myself. I believe in myself. I trust myself. I can do this!”

I end up saying this at least a half dozen times per day, and my goal is to override negative self talk with these new beliefs that I want to have.

You see how that works?

A little win is a small thing, but when you stack it up, it gives you a powerful foundation to stand on.

Here’s some basic criteria for a little win:

• SO EASY to achieve that you can do it on your worst day when you don’t feel like doing anything, or even if you remember right before going to bed.

• You can do it in less than a FEW MINUTES

• You can do it BY YOURSELF, wherever you are. You shouldn’t need help or special circumstances to achieve it. Those can become excuses/obstacles.

• TRACK IT — I track my pushups on my phone. I write down the numbers and total them up each month. Takes 10 seconds.

• Keep it SMALL — Resist the urge to make it bigger as it gets easier. Simply just consider anything you do beyond that as a BONUS. It’s icing on the cake.

Even if you miss a day of your new little win habit, don’t let perfectionism stop you.

You just start again the next day. And you will still be able to say,

“I’ve been COMMITTED to this goal since [TODAY]!”

This is a concept called “Don’t Break The Chain” that I borrowed from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, who borrowed it from comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

The goal is to build TRUST and CONFIDENCE in yourself.

Because those are the foundations for following through on your goals and commitments, which will lead to you having the life, business, body, relationships, finances, etc. that you dream of.

Now’s your part: Choose your little win.

Start today. Ideally in the next few minutes while your motivation is still sparked 😉

You can do this!

I’m so grateful to have you as a part of this community and I’m stoked to run alongside you,

— N