How Endless Weeds, Dirty Dishes, & Patrick Ewing Help Me Accomplish Anything

When I was a kid, chores seemed as though they would never end. They rarely did. Whether the weeds kept growing back 5 minutes after I picked them or the dish pile grew to oblivion, the chores were endless. However, there was something that kept me pulling weeds and washing dishes. No matter how many weeds needed to be picked or dishes cleaned, I knew that come Thursday, the shiny, aluminum pack with the likes of Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird and many others would be mine. Those basketball cards would be mine via an allowance that supplied those childhood icons. And so, I weeded and cleaned until that glorious Thursday would come fifty-two times per year.

The incentive was ingrained. The goal was achieved.

Pizza, Beaches & Success

Today, we think we can accomplish a lot. We can. We tend not to or, at least, we rarely achieve as much as we could. But the possibility and opportunity is always there to achieve our goals. The way we approach our goals just needs a bit of tweaking.

If I told you that finishing this specific marathon in 8 weeks was your goal and all you would think about for the next 8 weeks, you’d probably go crazy. I know I did during my first whole-hearted attempt at finishing a marathon. Instead, if I told you that you were to finish a marathon in 8 weeks, but after the race I would take you to all-you-can-eat pizza and a week-long vacation in Hawaii and proceeded to remind you of such before and after each training run, you wouldn’t struggle as much because you take the focus from the goal and apply it to the incentive. Would it be wonderful if the goal was enough satisfaction? Certainly, but we are humans who have developed our mindset where defeat is likely if the goal is the endpoint. By establishing the goal as 10% prior to the incentive, we push through the goal to the incentive and bring our focus to another level.

Incentives are key to anything and everything that we hope to accomplish. The reason we often fail is that we put all of our heart, energy and spirit into our goal and not as much of each into the journey and the reward on both sides of that goal. Often the journey towards one goal is overlooked until you start seeing the small victories. Incentives are different in that they truly are just something we look forward to. Yes, we enjoy them once we have accomplished our goal, but incentives’ true power lies in the establishment and pursuit.

We can accomplish a lot…as long as we implement an incentive-centric plan.

Incentives = 99.999% Success

In the coming weeks, I will be going further into the development of goals and the path that may help you achieve those goals. The tendency is to see those coming pieces and the act of setting and establishing goals as the way to succeed. Sure, those are integral parts, but often, we do not look beyond the goal. We don’t address the incentive.

Now, you may be thinking I am crazy because the only reason we establish a goal is to capture that goal whether it be physical or mental. This is true, but as stated earlier, incentives keep you headed in the right direction without focusing on the immensity of the goal itself. Thus, I have come to the personal conclusion that the greater attention I place on establishing the proper incentive, the likelier I am to accomplish the goal.

99.999% of the time, I attain my goal if I desire that incentive deeply enough. I leave that small fraction of failure out there as uncontrollable things do occur. Even then though, I often can accomplish the goal.

Bye-Bye Finish Line, Incentives Here I Come

I ask you this, “Do you want to reach your goal?” If you truly do want to reach your goal, you will spend 10% of your focus on the end result, the goal, and 90% on the incentive that comes with the goal. The difficulty of accomplishing your established goal will be lost in the pleasure of attaining the incentive that comes from achieving said goal.

Action Step: Establish a goal right now that is extremely simple as in you are guaranteed not to fail. Think finish dishes, do laundry, take a 10 minute walk. Once you have established this tiny goal, determine an incentive that far outweighs the goal. Think go out to a nice dinner, plan a one night getaway, go to the movies. Once you have established both of these. Start doing the necessary steps that will allow yourself to gain your incentive. Once you have accomplished your goal and enjoyed your incentive, look back and see if you would have accomplished your goal as quickly and efficiently without establishing that incentive. I bet you will be surprised how different your result will be compared to the non-incentive-centric approach. Let me know in the comments how it goes.

(Photo Credit)

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