#178 Eliminate Delay

To Increase Motivation and Jumbo Crushing

In our last +1, we revisited the Motivation Equation.

Have you gotten that tattooed on your forehead (or at least in your brain!) yet?!

I repeat it because Piers Steele won the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in psychology coming up with that equation after doing a meta analysis of thousands of studies done on Motivation. It’s worth learning/memorizing/internalizing.

Once again: Motivation = Expectation x Value divided by Impulsivity x Delay

To keep Motivation jumbo high (and Procrastination equally low), we need to be super fired up about something we really believe we can achieve while we keep the distraction gremlins at bay and set up micro goals and mini wins along the way.

Today we’ll focus on the Delay part of that equation.

The reason why “Delay” is a threat to Motivation is simple.

As Piers tells us: “As the deadline for any task gets pushed further into the future, Delay increases and our motivation to tackle the tasks decreases.”

In other words, if you have a goal to achieve X in a year or two, no matter how fired up you are about that goal, it will be REALLY hard to sustain super-high motivation when the goal is that far out. And, odds are, you’ll procrastinate. And, you certainly won’t be as productive as you would be if there was less “Delay” in your goal.

Let’s say you’re fired up about doing a Spartan Race. If that race is a year out, how consistently/hard are you going train?

Not as hard as you would if that race was only 3 months out, eh?

That’s Delay at work.

The closer the target, the higher the levels of Motivation.

THEREFORE…

Reduce the Delay. Increase Motivation.

You can apply this to anything.

Take your big, jumbo-awesome goal with the long-term horizon and then RUTHLESSLY chunk it down into the smallest possible components with target dates that are super close.

Let’s take a moment and do that now.

Step 1. What’s your most important project right now?

Step 2. What’s the next tiny little micro-milestone?

Step 3. What will you do TODAY to make that happen?

Fantastic.

Eliminate distractions and do that.

That’s Today’s +1.

Unlock this Heroic +1 (and over 1,000 more)!

Create your account to get more wisdom in less time. Personal development made simple so you can flourish in energy, work, and love. Today.

Sign Up Today