Have you ever forgone doing something that would move you closer to your goals under the premise that “in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter”? I myself have fallen prey to the sabotaging belief that one day, one moment, or one meal won’t matter too much. Except it does. Until you understand that every day does matter when you have big goals you want to achieve at stake you will struggle in achieving those goals.
“Every day I feel is a blessing from God. And I consider it a new beginning. Yeah, everything is beautiful.” – Prince
Why Every Day Matters
I don’t know about you but I have an easier time sticking with healthy habits when I’ve been sticking to healthy habits. Let me say that another way – If I eat like a slob for breakfast there’s a good chance I’ll eat like a slob for lunch as well. Slob meaning unhealthy, sugary, calorie heavy foods. And then I think, “This week’s a wash. I’ll eat what I want and get back to it next week.” But if I’ve been eating healthy all day I’m more likely to eat a healthy dinner as well.
What you do in one moment sets the path for what you will do in the next moment. Have you ever taken a break on a daily activity and then it just lagged on for months? Whether it be journaling, praying, reading, exercising, meditating, etc. Taking a break or deciding to follow through on a particular task both influence your next decision (specifically as it relates to the task or action). When you have big goals to achieve you want to consistently make movements that have the best influence on your next move.
Related: How to Achieve Your Goals and Dreams
Thinking that something doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things puts you in a vulnerable position as it relates to your goals. The little scheme of things build up to the grand scheme of things. Therefore, that which impacts the little scheme inadvertently impacts the grand scheme.
Now I’m not saying to stress and freak out over every little thing. Don’t sweat the small stuff. If you’ve had a bump in the road do what you can to recover and get back on track. Don’t dwell on it or beat yourself up over it. I also not saying you shouldn’t have cheat or rest days. The key is to have controlled cheat and rest days. That which is uncontrolled can get out of control very quickly.
What I am saying is that having the mindset that laxing your efforts in small increments (such as a day or a meal, etc.) doesn’t hurt anything could make it more difficult and a longer process in achieving your dreams. Instead you should have the attitude that every single day matters.
“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.” – Gretchen Rubin
Here’s why every day matters:
- “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily,” per Mike Murdock.
- Daily effort requires discipline. Discipline makes success possible.
- Every day is different. New learnings, breakthroughs, ideas, achievements come about.
- Any progress is better than no progress.
- It keeps you on track and makes you more likely to put the right effort in the next day.
- It feeds the vision. If you’re not paying attention to where you want to go you might get lost.
- Every day is a blessing and another chance to win.
[bctt tweet=”Every day is another chance to win.” username=”charlene_dior”]
How to Make Every Day Matter
Set Reasonable, Challenging Goals
One way to make every day matter is to set inspiring, yet reasonable goals. This is subjective. What’s inspiring or reasonable to me might not be for you. Know your goal-slaying style. However, you don’t want to be pretend working toward a crazy goal that you know you will not achieve. Notice I said “pretend working toward,” because if you’re working toward something that is not doable you’re really just playing around.
If you know that there is no way you will lose fifty pounds this week it makes it easier to justify eating what you want. Because “in the grand scheme of things” that cheeseburger and fries won’t matter. And they won’t matter. Not eating the cheeseburger and fries will not put you on the path to hit the goal. The goal will not be hit no matter what you do or do not eat or how often you do or do not exercise. It’s not achieveable so your efforts today don’t matter.
[bctt tweet=”If a goal is not achieveable your efforts don’t matter.” username=”charlene_dior”]
On the flip side you don’t want your goals to be so easy that you will hit them no matter what you do. If you know you got this you may start coasting and taking it easy. Every day might seem like it doesn’t matter because you know you could do very little and still hit the target. Many people experience a failure because they got too lax in the abundance times that they didn’t notice or wasn’t prepared for the decrease.
Again, what you do in this moment sets the path for what you will do in the next moment. You don’t want to develop habits of slacking, giving the bare minimum, or coasting along the way to your goals.
Make every day matter by setting achieveable goals that stretch you a bit. I said in my G.I.A Update that my goal this month is to double traffic over last month. It’s a doable goal but it’s also possible that I will not hit it. So therefore, what I do every day really does matter. One day could be the difference between achieving the goal and not achieving the goal. So I’m grinding everyday.
“In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” – Les Brown
Identify One Daily Thing
If you know that everyday there is one thing you could do that would move you in the right direction you can make every day matter. When you wake up in the morning ask yourself, “What’s the one thing that would make today a success?”
It could be making a phone call, exercising, or writing a blog post. It should put you in position to achieve the goal. Goals are rarely achieved over night. The are achieved over many nights, weeks, months, or years depending on the goal. What you do any given day can create a snowball effect that supercharges your progress.
One phone call could lead to a new job or business opportunity. One blog post could go viral and lead to more traffic and customers. Other daily one things, such as exercising, can help you develop strong habits that will ultimately be the difference between success and failure.
By identifying one daily win you reinforce the idea that what you do today does actually matter.
What to do When it Feels like it Doesn’t Matter
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that sometimes it really does feel as if it doesn’t matter. When you’ve been pressing toward the vision for weeks or months, even years and you see no evidence of life in the dream it’s quite possible to believe that today doesn’t matter (in the grand scheme of things). Once you’ve adopted an attitude of “what I do today doesn’t matter” what’s to stop tomorrow from not mattering? Don’t let your mind go there. Instead try these five things to help you feel like today and every day matters.
Analyze results
Sometimes it looks like we aren’t making progress because we haven’t actually reviewed or analyzed our results. You may not be where you want to be but I’m sure you’ve made good progress. You may be growing leaps and bounds in secondary metrics or what we in marketing analytics call leading indicators. You may not be making the money that you want but maybe your web traffic has grown significantly. Web traffic is a leading indicator.
Maybe you are unemployed and you have been struggling to find a job. You might want to take a day or two off the job search since in the grand scheme of things it won’t matter anyway. But if you’ve been getting more calls and interviews that could be an indicator that you’re getting close. When you’re close you don’t give in. You push harder.
By actually paying attention to how far you’ve come you (even in secondary metrics) can boost your confidence in your daily efforts.
Related: How to Really Achieve Your Goals in Life
Measure success in a different way
Many success gurus advocate for measuring success based on what you can control. Instead of saying “I’m successful if I sell 5 houses” it’s, “I’m successful if I show 15 houses.” You don’t control results. You control effort. You can predict results based on effort once you know your numbers. For example, if it takes 3 house showings to get a sale and your goal is five sales your effort (which you control) should be to show 15 houses.
When what you bring to today makes today matter then you can make every day matter by simply bringing something to it. Focus on your effort and every day that you give your best effort will be a day that matters.
Also think about different metrics that perhaps represent the same thing. Inches and pounds lost both indicate a smaller, more healthier body. If you’ve been gauging your success in pounds take a look at your inches. There may be a different, more favorable story when you look at a different metric.
Identify a quick win
When you’re discouraged a quick win can save your dreams. It’s the reason I love low carb diets. I can’t eat low carbs indefinitely but it gives me a quick win when I’ve packed on the pounds and need to get them off. Maybe there’s something that you haven’t considered before, the low-hanging fruit, that you can easily grab.
Asking for help can be a quick win. Getting additional brainpower or manpower around your goals is never really a bad thing. If you’ve been doing it all on your own getting support can change things for you. This could be asking for referrals for jobs or clientele. It could be asking for advice or best practices from someone who’s a little further along than you. It could just be asking someone to brainstorm ideas with you.
[bctt tweet=”Asking for help can generate a quick win.” username=”charlene_dior”]
Another quick win could be sharing your situation with your network of friends and family. Sometimes we keep our struggles to ourselves. Someone may be able to help you so if you haven’t shared what you’re working toward with others now may be the time.
I had a quick win when I got active on Pinterest. Trying a different avenue can product a quick win. There’s a sweet spot when it comes to pivoting to a different strategy on a goal. You don’t want to move too soon when you haven’t given a strategy time to develop roots. On the flip side you don’t want to hang on past the point of a strategy being revived. I hung out on Facebook way too long. Pivoting to Pinterest was a quick win. If you’ve been committed to one course of action that hasn’t taken off for you despite significant time and effort making a pivot could produce a quick win.
Shift Your Focus
If you really want to achieve your dreams you have to focus more on where you’re going and less on where you are. If what you do every day seems like it doesn’t matter you’re too focused on where you are. Shift your focus to your future. Concentrate on what you need to do EVERY DAY to lead you to the vision. They say if you want to eat an elephant you do so one bite at a time. Do you think if an elephant was bitten one or two times most people would notice someone was eating the elephant? Probably not. So you can’t focus on what it looks like. If you know you’re steady taking bites focus on the goal of eating the elephant.
[bctt tweet=”If you really want to achieve your dreams you have to focus more on where you’re going and less on where you are.” username=”charlene_dior”]
Pray for faith
Sometimes when it feels like what you do today doesn’t matter it’s because you’ve lost faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. “Substance of” could also be interpreted as confidence in. If you’ve lost confidence in yourself or the vision you need a boost of new confidence and faith. Prayer can help give your faith a boost. Pray for a second wind.
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