Have you ever chocked under pressure about a job, task, or project? Did you find yourself wondering if you would finish?
At some point, did it feel like all you wanted is to get it done…and didn’t care much about quality anymore?
If this has happened to you, you might have ended up feeling guilty and highly disappointed in your abilities.
Even though your desire for a positive end result is high, the difficulty level or time required to complete the task has the potential to make you want to give up.
What do you do when it comes to persevering until a job is complete? How can you persist until you meet your goals?
Below are some useful strategies if you constantly struggle to complete what you start.
7 strategies to ensure your persistence pays
1. Be consistent.
Sometimes, it feels like you’ll never get there. When you feel that way, remind yourself that you simply must continue.
If you continue working consistently, you have a higher likelihood of eventually completing the task, job or project. And you will enjoy the benefits when your persistence pays off.
2. Acknowledge what you’ve done so far.
Seeing some mini-results will give you a burst of motivation. Have acute awareness of what you’ve already completed as well as what you have left to do.
For example, say you completed 10% of the project last week. That’s 10% less than you have to do to finish the work. Acknowledge this, celebrate, and get back to work.
3. Maintain a positive outlook.
Staying focused on the positive makes it easier to persevere. Being positive is a choice, so take advantage of it. Accentuate the positive as much as you can.
4. Don’t under-estimate what it will take to finish.
We’ve all had the experience of thinking we know how long we’ll spend to complete a particular task, only to find that it takes much longer. If you must make a ball-park guess as to how much time you’ll need, it’s better to over-estimate.
5. Make a personal vow to finish what you’ve started.
Stay conscious of what you want to do and why you want to do it. Then commit to finish it. This gives you a kick especially when your motivation is low.
Here’s a common example among working women. You sign up for an advanced degree and years later you’re still struggling to complete it.
It’s way past your expected completion time and you keep starting and stopping. Due to procrastination, you have so much work pending it seems like it will never get done.
What if this time you made a commitment to complete the degree within X time and actually do it? Promise yourself you’ll push on until your persistence pays off. Then keep your promise.
If you need additional motivation, recruit someone to hold you accountable. This will help you avoid procrastination and get the work done.
6. Recognize when to tweak your results.
Life changes and so do situations and people. So there will be times when it makes sense to slightly alter your end goal if you can.
If what you want has changed, it’s okay. Just revisit the goal, tweak it, and continue working on it.
Note that this strategy works best for long-term projects and goals. Stay focused so that you’ll identify when it’s time to make alterations.
7. Consider setting mini-goals.
If you need some extra motivation along the way, you will benefit from setting interim goals that you can easily accomplish. It feels good to see that you’re achieving your mini-goals. The momentum you gain is remarkable.
For example, say you have a target of making 30 sales per month. You sell a high-priced item and normally find it hard to make more than 10 sales in a month.
When you face that fact, it’s overwhelming and you feel like you can’t do it. It’s difficult to get started each month and your motivation is low.
But what if you were to set a goal to increase your sales by 1-2 each month? That’s definitely much easier to consider and chances are pretty good that you’ll be successful.
In the first month, you increase your sales to 11 or 12. And when you succeed, you can rejoice in the moment. Celebrate and set another mini-goal to make 1-2 more sales the next month.
It may seem like your progress is slow, but cumulatively you will make more sales in a year than you did previously.
Set mini-goals to keep momentum and ensure you persist to the task’s end.
To recap…
Persistence is a challenge that’s well worth conquering.
Be consistent and take note of what you’ve done so far.
Stay as positive as you can and avoid under-estimating the time it will take to complete the job.
Vow to finish what you start and stay aware of what you’re doing so you can adjust your goal if you need to.
Finally, consider setting mini-goals and persist until you finish the task.
Implement these strategies to ensure your persistence pays!
(Image credit: Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash)
