Developing a new skill. Building a routine. At the turn of the new year, the resolution to make such changes burns strong in many. Yet good intentions often recede under the draw of familiar habits and with the waning of motivation.
It’s a common sight: gyms flourish with new members in January, only for their numbers to thin as the months progress. This fatigue is common not just for exercise, but riddles all resolutions, be it related to learning a new skill, building a business, or starting a new hobby. How do you keep going?
I am the projects manager for the European Geosciences Union. I’m also a scientist, science communicator, charity co-founder and amateur bodybuilder; achieving sustainable, long-term development has been vital throughout my career and personal life. I also have AuDHD and bipolar, which limits my ability to work effectively in more traditional working conditions; this has forced me to develop strategies which acknowledge my symptoms whilst helping me to slot into modern work cultures. Below are my tips taken from my career and personal development.
Build a simple strategy
A strategy is a model like any other – it should be simple, approximate and useful. Too much complexity and your strategy will be ungainly and difficult to manage, resulting in disengagement and the feeling of being overwhelmed. When building a strategy, break it down into manageable steps:
- What is your expected timeline?
- What are the key milestones for progress?
- What will be your daily routine?
Don’t overthink your steps. You won’t be able to fully appreciate your project until you’re doing it. As such, it doesn’t matter if it’s approximate; we’re mapping a route, not building a road. If you spend too much time thinking you won’t end up acting on it, and change requires action!
Set a start date. Mitigate against paralysis by employing external structures to keep you in check. A start-date will help you commit to doing the work, even if you’re not fully sure about your strategy. Remember: nothing is ever 100% certain, and so don’t expect your strategy to be either.
Adapt your strategy
Your strategy must be adaptable. Strategies are built from our pre-conceived notions, but these priors are loaded with biases and uncertainty. To counter this, strategies must be simple to ensure its adaptability.
Update your strategy as you go. A good project manager understands that the needs of a project changes as it progresses and new insights emerge. Adapt to the changing needs of your project by altering your expected time-line and reviewing your milestones. Consider altering your routine by switching up your methods, choosing a different working environment, or working at a different time of the day, for example.
Embrace uncertainty. Science is strengthened by acknowledging that phenomena manifest over a distribution of values; accepting uncertainty means allowing for variation. Similar, learning to be comfortable with strategic uncertainty strengthens your approach as it allows for self-correction as new information emerges.
Don’t adhere to an idealized strategy. A dogmatic adherence to a plan is a form of denial: it will disrupt progress and ultimately de-motivate you as the gap widens between your expectations and reality. Ensure that your strategy is aligned with the developing needs of your project. If you catch yourself feeling like you’re behind, take it as a sign to review your strategy: perhaps capacities have changed and new needs have been introduced. Have you taken these into account? If you haven’t, then your expectation are out of sync with the new reality.
Progress isn’t linear. In weight-lifting, a de-load phase is a period where a bodybuilder lifts lighter weights. Whilst this seems counter-intuitive to progressively increasing weight to build muscle, it provides time for the body to recover. This allows for the lifting of heavier weights in the future. Similarly, a period that can seem like a regression can allow you to take a step back reassess your approach. A backward step is still part of the dance.
Prioritise your goals
Set a single goal. If there’s only one thing you want to achieve this year, what is it? Use that goal as your guiding star around which your strategy is built. Ambition is its own obstacle: you might want to learn multiple skills this year, for example, but attempting to achieve too much can lead to burn-out. Instead, start small and build up.
Decide what you’re not going to do. Prioritisation also means choosing what you’re not going to achieve: this can be painful, but ignoring this step means you risk losing focus which will stymie progress. Deciding what you’re not going to do brings clarity and direction. Not making a decision is itself a decision; by avoiding making a decision you are electing to do nothing, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do!
Use short-term goals to build momentum
Set secondary goals which support your main goal. For a long-term strategy, where you might not see an outcome in months or years, short-term goals are milestones to help you track progress and generate motivation as each one is accomplished. Make your short-term goals manageable and realistic.
Make sure your secondary goals are diverse. Your bigger, long-term goal is the product of diverse number of choices. Structuring your life in a way that supports your long-term goal is itself a goal; do not fall into the trap of focusing on narrow goals and ignoring the other activities needed to be done to ensure success. For example, if writing an article, your goals shouldn’t just focus on putting words to paper but also include planning, selecting publications, researching information, joining a writing group for social accountability, incorporating rest breaks, or finding support to help with other responsibilities which otherwise sap at your time and energy.
Add stretch-goals later. As you progress, you will gain a clearer understanding of the time, energy and resources that can be dedicated to your project. This is when you might consider adding in stretch goals: non-essential but positive contributions or add-ons of your primary goal.
Measure (and celebrate!) your progress
What gets measured gets managed. Understanding how and why you are progressing allows you to adapt your strategy. It also helps with motivation when you celebrate what has changed. If you’re struggling to make progress, something will need to be adjusted to ensure you are better supported. This can only be comprehended if you take note of how you are approaching your tasks.
Measure progress with a metric. A metric allow you to to identify what methods and environment enabled you. This can be the time you’ve spent on a task, the number of words written, or progress photos. Whatever it is, it must allow for comparison between different times. You must find a metric that works for you: you’re not going to keep it up if it makes you miserable.
Achieve big goals through small steps
Your biggest focus should be on the smallest steps. Focusing on distant goals can be overwhelming and too often leads borrowing grief from the future. Instead, focus on the small tasks. Every marathon is made by many (approximately 50,000) steps. That’s a lot of small movements forward that contribute to an ambitious goal! When running a marathon your focus is on putting one step in front of the other. Similarly, whilst your strategy lays out your long-term ambition, it is your day-to-day steps which get you travelling.
Plan the daily steps. On the day you have dedicated to your project, what actions do you need take? For example, instead of thinking about how you’re going to publish a paper this year, instead focus on writing for an hour or number of words per day. Remember to also include steps which support your tasks and not just the task itself. This might be ensuring your working environment is pleasant and free of distractions, for example.
Get started by focusing on the smallest steps
Set a time-frame. Getting started can be the hardest part – the brain hates moving from low to higher effort task: it doesn’t make sense for energy conservation. Overcome this by dedicating a specific time to work on your project. Avoid setting nebulous goals, such as dedicating “an evening” to a task or hobby, which provides room for procrastination.
Set small goals to snowball into success. If you’re struggling to kick-off a routine, then reduce your ambition: try to achieve 10 minutes of writing instead of an hour, for example. Often, those 10 minutes can snowball into longer and more productive sessions. Even if this doesn’t happen, setting an achievable and a manageable routine will provide a foundation upon which you can gradually build on in the future.
Trick the brain with easy goals. Starting a task can be difficult due to the meaning we have given it. This results in cognitive loading and executive dysfunction, which makes it difficult to take action and make a decision. Ease this cognitive burden by re-framing the task at hand. When I started my bodybuilding journey, I used to be incredibly anxious about going to the gym. To overcome this, I tricked myself into attending by making my goal not to workout, but to walk through the gym door. Once there, I might as well do my workout! This might sound incredibly simple, but the result will ease your cognitive burden by making your tasks less intimidating.
Focus on habit, not motivation
Motivation is fickle, but a routine can carry you through. Dedicate time to your project on the same day and at the same time. Focus on building a sustainable routine through which you habituate and build momentum.
Momentum is gradually built over time. Motivation is rarely comes as lightning strike of energy, but it is instead a response to the gradual build-up of regular, predictable behaviours.
Gradually build a routine
Do not rush. Resist the temptation to reach for quick fixes or short-term validation. Change takes time. Trying to do too much too quickly results in fatigue: it’s a common reason why people drop out of the gym just a few months after making their resolution to exercise more. The mind must adapt as well as the body, and your brain hates change.
Ease yourself into your routine. Start small with manageable steps. After a month, review your progress and capacity. This is when you may consider adding in more time dedicated to your goal. Again, only increase your routine by small amounts. We’re aiming for long-term, sustainable change and not a quick fix.
Consistency is king
Change is progress over time. Showing up and taking action is how we progress. Similar to how species evolve by adapting to their environments, we’re asking our bodies and minds to adapt to a new routine. In order for us to adapt we must be consistent with our actions, as this demarcates the new routine which we wish to adapt to.
Consistency is not the same as perfection. When you fall off routine, focus on getting back on the track and don’t punish yourself for straying. Overcorrect and you’ll make it harder to regain consistency.
Imagine your routine as a pendulum balanced over the centre-point. This centre-point is the ideal level where the time and energy you invest allows you to make sustainable progress. Swing the pendulum too far one way and you do little, halting progress. Swing too much the other way and you’ll exceed your capacity and burnout.
When falling off routine, it’s tempting to work harder in order to “catch-up”. But this swings the pendulum too much in the direction of exertion and as you exceed your capacity. Inevitably, it will swing back the other way. Avoid burn-out and fatigue by always focusing on returning to the sustainable centre-point.
Now you know how to make a change by introduction to basic strategic development and how to kick it off. Keep an eye out for the second blog in this series next week, where I’ll discuss how to make your growth sustainable.
