Short-term goals are familiar to most lawyers. Our days tend to be driven by deadlines, fire drills, and other things that need to be completed in the near future.
But what about big goals that will take much longer to complete? Often, these goals are more personal and may be more meaningful to us, such as our financial goals, but they sometimes can feel overwhelming or impossible.
If you’re finding it hard to stay motivated as you work toward a big goal, this episode is for you. I’m sharing my own struggles with staying motivated to reach one of my big goals plus three tips to keep you motivated on your journey.
Lightly edited transcript appears after the show notes.
Topics Discussed
- an example of my struggle with trying to reach a big goal
- three tips to help you stay motivated to reach your big goals
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Lightly Edited Transcript
Hey friend. Happy Friday! How are you?
I hope you have an amazing week and that you have an even better weekend.
I am super excited to talk to you today about staying motivated to reach your goals, but before we jump in there, I want to read the latest review on Apple Podcasts.
This review comes from J. Amanda C., and it says, “The mentor every lawyer needs. This podcast is full of guidance that every lawyer needs. It’s clear upfront and all value. The advice around mindset, boundaries, freedom of time, and building wealth are needed for young and seasoned lawyers and professionals alike.”
Amanda, thank you so much for that five-star review. I greatly appreciate it. I am so glad to serve you, and I’m glad that you are getting a lot out of the show.
So, as we jump into today’s episode, as I said, I want to talk about staying motivated. Studies show that 80% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the second week of February, so I thought I would release this episode the first week of February to try to help you not become part of that statistic.
So, I personally don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I think January 1 is an arbitrary day to decide to change, but I know many of us have set goals for ourselves, whether it was on January 1 or not.
And I know how it feels when your motivation starts waning or when your goal just seems impossible because it’s so far off.
One of my biggest goals, as you know, is paying off over $670,000 of debt. Back when we first started on this journey, like, when we first looked at our numbers at the end of 2016, and we saw that we had over $670,000 in debt, it felt impossible.
I remember that gut-sinking feeling seeing the number after we added everything up. But I also remember feeling hopeful.
When we did research, and we were looking up how to pay off debt and came across all these people who were paying debt off in super short timeframes.
Seeing their stories made me believe it was possible for us. And even though their debts tended to be a fraction of what we had. I remember thinking, if they can do it we can do it.
But going through the last four years, I’ve definitely had periods where my motivation was lacking, especially early on, and it felt like we were never going to finish. When we first, first started, we were at the bottom of the mountain. It was like how are we ever going to get there.
And I’ve told you before that I used to blog. I started my blog back in 2018, and it was to keep us accountable on our journey and also inspire others in similar positions.
So back then there was this curation site called Rockstar Finance. It was like the hub for all things personal finance, and they would pull together what they considered the three or four best blog posts each day and featured them.
It was a big deal to get Rockstarred, as we called it. I got Rockstarred twice, and both times I got the amount of traffic I normally got on my blog in a whole month in a single day. So that was kind of cool, and I actually think that site still exists, but it pretty much died after a change in ownership a few years ago.
But anyway, that was a whole tangent that has nothing to do with what I wanted to tell you. The point of me bringing up Rockstar Finance is that they also had a net worth tracker for all the personal finance bloggers who publicly shared their net worth.
So when I started my blog, I submitted our net worth around January 2018 or so, and it was negative $258,000 at the time. When we started our journey back at the end of 2016, it was negative $342,000, so we had made some good progress, but I remember when they sent me confirmation that they had entered us into the directory, they put it in as positive $258,000, and I had to go back to them like, “Oh no. Actually, it’s negative.”
When they updated it, we were all the way at the bottom. Literally there were 536 bloggers in the directory at the time, and we were number 535.
I remember just feeling so far from our ultimate goal of financial independence because we had so far to go just to get to zero. And this one time, my husband and I went to dinner at our church for a fundraiser. It was maybe a year or so into our journey. Part of the dinner included a presentation from some middle schoolers, and at one point during the dinner, I realized that these middle schoolers had a higher net worth than us. It was such a strange feeling.
But all that to say, I definitely know what it’s like to have a goal that seems so far away or seems impossible. And when you have a goal like that you have to find ways to keep yourself motivated to keep going until you reach it.
It’s super easy to get discouraged, and give up and so I want to share three tips to help you stay motivated to hit your goals.
The first one is to remember your why. One of the best ways to stay motivated is to keep the reason behind your goal in mind.
Why are you doing all this? What’s the point of your goal?
For me, with our financial independence goal, it’s our kids. My husband and I both have fairly demanding careers, and I don’t want to spend my kids’ whole childhood behind a desk or, you know, whenever we make it back to the office with the way the pandemic is going.
I enjoy practicing law, especially the type of law I practice because personally in my unbiased opinion trademark law is the best practice area.
But I also enjoy other things, right. And so that’s what financial independence means to me. It’s the ability to control my time, buying back my time so I can focus on the things that matter to me.
And I’ve told you before, just being on the path to financial independence, will open up so many options for you. So even though we haven’t hit full out financial independence yet, because of the progress we’ve already made with our money over the last four years, I was able to drop down to 50% at work while I’m balancing caring for my kids with my law practice and my coaching practice during the pandemic. So that has been everything for me.
When you are struggling to stay motivated. Think about your why. Because that is truly a major driving factor to reaching your goals.
My second tip is to celebrate your progress along the way. So celebrating smaller achievements. On the way to a larger goal is so important.
You can get really discouraged when you have such a big goal and feel like you’ll never make it. But instead, if you break it down into smaller goals, you’re reaching for a point that seems more possible right like it’s more in reach, but it still moves you toward the ultimate goal.
And this is the concept of starting where you are that we talked about back in Episode 29. The smaller goals are closer to where you are now. It’s easier for you to hit them. It’s easier for you to believe that you can hit them.
And then as you do, like as you rack up those wins, each of those goals is now evidence that you can do this thing that you want to do. You also are building up belief and trust in yourself that you’re going to do it.
In addition, hitting all the smaller goals you eventually hit the larger one, so you ultimately trick yourself almost into accomplishing it because you’re so focused on the smaller steps that get you there. Getting those quick wins keeps you motivated to keep going and taking time to celebrate yourself as you hit them gives you something to look forward to in the process of reaching a long-term goal.
My final tip is don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle. It’s so easy to look at someone who’s further along in their journey and start comparing with where you are and get discouraged.
So going back to the Rockstar Finance example I was telling you about earlier, some of the top bloggers on that network directory, or like multimillionaires right they had multi-million dollar net worth, but they probably didn’t start there.
The directory included your age range, and the top three I know were in their like 50s and 60s, so they were decades further along than we were. And they probably had good money management habits and all of that, that helped them get to that point.
So maybe you’re just getting started with trying to pay off debt or you’re just starting to save for a down payment on your house or whatever your big goal is.
You might find inspiration in looking at what others have done, but make sure you don’t weaponize their accomplishments against yourself. Look at their accomplishments as proof that it’s possible for you, too, but don’t listen if your brain starts telling you you’re not good enough to do that or you’ll never be there or whatever other thoughts it comes up with.
Our brains are really sneaky, and they will tell us things that aren’t true to try to keep us within our comfort zone and keep us safe and all of that. Don’t fall for it. If you don’t get a little uncomfortable, you will never be able to grow and reach the goals you have for yourself.
This is the kind of work that a coach can help with by the way. We see those sneaky thoughts that are holding you back from the things you want to do, and we help you get past them so you can reach your goals. If you’ve been struggling to reach your goals, or if your goals just feel impossible, why don’t you set up a call? We can talk about how we can work together and help you get to whatever that ultimate goal is with your finances, and you can head to rhothomas.com/coaching, if you are interested.
Reaching your goal will take persistence. It’ll take perseverance, focus, but if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually you’re going to get there.
Okay, so let’s recap.
1. 80% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the second week of February.
2. Remembering your why is a great way to stay motivated with your goals. A strong why is a major driving force behind hitting your goals.
3. Setting smaller milestone goals on the way to your ultimate goal and celebrating small wins along the way is key. The smaller steps feel more attainable, and as you hit them, you build the belief in your ability to hit your ultimate goal.
4. We have a tendency to weaponize other people’s stories and use them against ourselves. We compare where we are to where other people are. Look at other people who are further along as examples of what’s possible, if you want, but don’t compare what they’ve done to your journey and discount your own progress or discourage yourself.
Alright, that’s it for this week’s episode. Come on over to our private Facebook community, The Wealthyesque Community, and let’s talk about the big goals that you’re striving for and how you’re staying motivated. You can find us at rhothomas.com/community.
If you got value out of today’s episode, please share with a friend. If you decide to share on social media, don’t forget to tag me, @iamrhothomas, and I am most active on Instagram. Would love to connect.
Subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you listen on, and leave a written review like the one I read at the beginning of the show. Those reviews are so helpful because they help the show get seen. They help other people to find us, and I just enjoy reading them and seeing what you’ve gotten out of the show.
Okay, friend, as we close out, I pray that you will take a minute and recommit to whatever your big goal is.
I pray that you will use the tips from this episode to keep yourself motivated and keep putting one foot in front of the other until you reach your goal.
And as always, I pray that you continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve.
Talk to you later.
Hi, I’m Rho! I’m a wife, mom, and Biglaw associate who believes that true wealth is having control of your time. I help busy lawyers like you take back control of your time by teaching you how to achieve lifestyle freedom through mindset shifts and financial independence. Read a little more about me here.
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