Small Bites of Motivation

I want to continue with some of the comments made by Jeff Rahill of Kauai that I shared in last week’s post. These were from a letter to me that we jokingly called a “book report” dealing with specific parts of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, that he thought were particularly helpful.

Here’s some of what he wrote from different sections of the book:

On the subject of “The Bite-Size Miracle” Jeff said, “I definitely believe in achieving your goals, be it long range or the immediate task at hand, by taking it one bite at a time. I remember in the last half of the marathon at Ironman, telling myself that I just had to make it to the next aid station, which were one mile apart. Then I saw the handmade signs on the side of the road: ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’ Like you said, ‘Action is the key … keep moving.’”

That section of the book dealt with how to accomplish a goal by breaking it down into small goals so that, step by step, you would get accomplish that end goal. This can be used in almost any circumstances where the accomplishment seems too huge to tackle. In the book I used an example of a man who survived and literally dragged himself back from certain death by seeing each few feet he needed to cover to get to his base camp as one small goal. If you can just block out that overwhelming, seemingly impossible picture of the big goal by putting all your focus on the small goal, you can, one tiny goal after another, get yourself to that finish line.

I also really enjoyed Jeff’s comments on ‘The Surefire Way to Stick with Every Goal’ The secret is to know your benefits, reasons and motivations, and write them down.  Jeff adds a bit about his experience in how this relates to keeping fit. He wrote “I’m with you on the subject of fasting.  I’ve been fasting one day a week for over 40 years. It’s part of my health plan. Another part is being a vegetarian for that same period.”  By the way, Jeff looked to be in terrific physical shape and certainly seemed well aware of the benefits and reasons for his fasting choice.

Jeff had a few more choice comments I want to share and reflect on with you but we’ll save them for next time. These two lessons are big ideas that can make all the difference in reaching your goals. If you can just take and apply these to the things you are working towards right now, I bet you’ll see a big difference in just the one week between this post and the next one. Let’s see if that’s true!

The Power Tool of Goal Setting: B-RAM

The last couple posts I talked about some of the essential components to success including taking action and writing out your goal. Without them you can’t even get started. But what will keep you going once you do get started? All the best intentions are not going to help you when things get really challenging.

Take dieting, as an example. You go out to eat and you’re sitting there with your Caesar salad while your companions chow down prime rib and pizza and your mouth is salivating nonstop. You begin to wonder why in the world are you are dieting when you could just be enjoying yourself. But, the next day, a glance at yourself in the mirror makes you smile or you end up out playing ball with the kids for an hour instead of just ten minutes. That’s when it’s easy to remember why you’re changing the way you eat and, in those moments, you can honestly say you don’t miss those Grande mochas with whipped cream in the morning. Until your co-worker walks in with one and, again, you forget why you’re dieting. It’s then that you need a true will power tool.

That tool is something I call B-RAM. You can read about it in Chapter 7 of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. B-RAM stands for Benefits, Reasons, and Motivations. It’s a list of the real end goals you’re after. Losing weight isn’t just about looking good—it’s about feeling better, getting off medication, reducing your risk of disease, and increasing your energy so you can do more for yourself and your family. You know this is why you do it but in those really trying moments, they are just hard to remember.

With a B-RAM list though, all you do is pull the list out and read it over. You keep that list as handy as possible. Maybe you put it on your phone, on an index card in your wallet, or on sticky notes posted on your glove compartment and bathroom mirror. The important thing about your B-RAM list is that it must list every single benefit, reason, and motivation that will make this goal worth working so hard for. The longer the list, the easier it will be to keep on track. And if you can do that, just keep yourself going, soon you won’t have to wonder why you work so hard. Because you’ll be living with those benefits, not just reading about them.