The secret to sticking with things

Big projects become doable when each step is easy and (relatively) pleasant

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that we tend to stick with things that
are easy, pleasant, and fit in our lives. If you

(00:24):
are trying to stick with any project long term, it
helps to structure it to satisfy those conditions. I know
that a great many people set goals and resolutions for
the new year. By the end of the year, many
of these have been forgotten or at least abandoned. It

(00:46):
may be true that some people are more oriented towards
sticking with random, self imposed goals than others, but I
also think that in many cases, people abandon their projects
because they aren't structured in a way that makes success likely.
I set a few long term goals this year, and

(01:06):
I am happy to report that they have mostly happened.
For instance, I wanted to listen to all the works
of Beethoven. I wanted to read Anna Karnina, and I
wanted to write fifty two sonnets. Those are fourteen line
poems that follow a certain rhyming scheme. Coming into December,
I have indeed listened to almost all of Beethoven. I

(01:30):
finished Tolstoy's epic a while ago, and I have written
forty eight sonnets and will hit fifty two by January.
I will not credit any deep well of discipline for
any of this. Anyone thinking that should see how much
time I waste scrolling on social media. But I did
structure all of these projects very carefully. For instance, when

(01:53):
I decided I wanted to listen to Beethoven, I became
aware of a site called the Complete Beethoven, which breaks
his work into three hundred and sixty six daily assignments
with links to the best recordings of each piece. I
understand this isn't truly complete, as we skipped some of
his less exciting folk songs, but it is pretty comprehensive.

(02:16):
Each day I simply listened to the day's performances as
I was driving people around in the car. It was easy.
All I had to do was click on the links
and pleasant. Beethoven is kind of known for being a
good composer. This elevated time in the car considerably. It
also fit into my life, since I spend a lot

(02:37):
of time in the car. Same with reading Tolstoy. Anna
Karna is about nine hundred pages long, but it consists
of around two hundred and forty very short chapters. I
just read one chapter a day through to September, and voila,
I had finished the book. It took just a few

(02:58):
minutes a day, and since Anna Karinyna is one of
the best novels ever written, this was pleasant enough. No
huge will of discipline required. I kept the book on
my nightstand and just read through it, reading a little
ahead or making up a little time afterward when I traveled.
As for the sonnets, writing fourteen lines a week requires

(03:22):
writing two lines a day. Each of these lines is
just ten syllables, so the requirement was simply twenty syllables
a day, not that hard at all. I could usually
do that in a minute or two, and now I
have a lot of poems. If you are trying to

(03:43):
stick with anything long term, it might help to follow
this same rubric. How can you make each step toward
your goal as easy as possible? We won't do anything
for two hours a day. Twenty minutes might be more
possible or even less. As for pleasure, to be successful,

(04:04):
you generally need to choose goals you actually want to
do and find it least semi enjoyable for their own sake.
If you hate running, it's going to be hard to
stick with running. Maybe you need to find another form
of exercise that you hate less. There are all sorts
of longer projects I haven't done. I don't really want

(04:24):
to read all of Dickens, for instance. It also helps
to think through your life and think about when you
can do whatever these small steps are. If you want
to journal, maybe you should do that for five minutes
in the morning, or maybe for you it would work
better as a short break during the workday. Maybe you
plan to do five minutes of push ups and sit

(04:46):
ups each day while watching TV. Maybe you have something
you could listen to in the car each day, and
you know you spend a lot of time in the car.
Don't assume a perfect life. Don't assume your life will
change dramatically. Look at life as it is or as
it reasonably could be, and see what fits with that.

(05:09):
If you do those things, though, then you won't need
huge supplies of discipline to stick with things. Even big
goals can be achieved through very small steps. This becomes
less a matter of discipline and more just a matter
of remembering, and that is easy enough. Put your goal

(05:30):
on your to do list each day and cross it
off when you do it, and then just keep going.
That is the secret to sticking with things, and I
do think sticking with things can be a superpower in
this world where people often get distracted. Anyone can start something.

(05:50):
Finishing things is incredibly satisfying. In the meantime, This is Laura.
Thanks for listening years to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,

(06:13):
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
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