We all want to achieve our goals as quickly as possible. It’s human nature. When we want something, we want it sooner and not later.
Of course, big goals usually require a long-term commitment and that requires patience.
How do you keep your eyes on the ultimate prize when it still seems so far away? How do you stay motivated for the long-term when facing short-term setbacks and obstacles you wish you had already overcome?
Oklahoma basketball coach Lon Kruger offers this powerful advice…
As coaches, we expect results immediately as well. While we understand the value of wins and losses, we know we must have other measures during the crucial building period as we are establishing the foundation on which to proceed. We focus on improving our starting point.
We want our team to be better at the beginning of the next season than we were at the beginning of the last season.
If we improve every day in practice, that means we enter the next practice or the next game at an improved starting point every time.
This philosophy brings results because it forces you to focus on improving just a little bit every single day. If you do that, you will make consistent progress and eventually win games.
Consistent short-term improvement leads to long-term success. It’s not always about hitting the home run or focusing solely on final results.
The “simplicity of success”—leading our team to do the basic things every day to implement our plan—contributes directly to improving the starting point.
Continually try to improve your starting point and you can’t fail.
– Lon Kruger, from his book The Xs & Os of Success
When chasing that big dream that still feels so far away, you need to constantly ask yourself: Am I improving TODAY’S starting point?
Are you just a little closer to your goal today than you were yesterday? Are you doing everything you can right now to make sure that tomorrow morning you’ll be closer to your dream than you were when you woke up today?
If you can answer “yes” to those questions, you’re moving your starting point forward.
And as long as you’re moving that starting point forward, you’re getting closer and closer to making your biggest dreams come true.
To succeed, you need GRIT. A lot of GRIT. And that means you have to KEEP MOVING FORWARD. Inch by inch, every single day.
You can’t panic or get frustrated if it’s taking longer than you hoped to accomplish your big goal. If it was easy and instantaneous, everyone would do it.
You will eventually find that when chasing a big and worthy goal, only a rare few have the GRIT and determination to keep fighting their way forward. If you make the decision to keep moving forward every single day, you will have a tremendous advantage over all the competition out there.
Those who can stick with it and continue to move forward are those who ultimately succeed.
Every single day should be measured by whether or not you moved closer to your goal. If you moved the starting point forward, you won this day. If you didn’t, you lost.
Just keep moving the starting point forward and you’ll get to where you need to be right when the time is right.
