It’s A Marathon Not A Sprint
Community Feature

It’s A Marathon Not A Sprint

By January 10, 2022 No Comments
Trouble keeping New Year's goals?

Every goal starts first inside your mind.

According to neuroscientist Caroline Leaf, changes in thinking and behavior occur in 63-day cycles. 63-days is also how long it takes to build a new thought network that influences how we think, feel and choose. This is vital knowledge, as every goal starts first inside your mind.

The first 21-day cycle is important.

The thoughts you think impact 75 to 100 trillion cells in your brain and body at quantum speeds! Creating new thought patterns requires a lots of energy from us. This energy is created when we think about our new habits and daily practice the habits. This is most important in the first 21-day cycle. The first 21 days of practice helps to facilitate the required neurochemical and structural changes in the brain that make it a usable and valuable thought. Then, for the next forty-two days, you need to consciously practice using the new thought, which allows a useful habit to form.

Stay in the loop!

It’s easy to fail in our set goals when we look at the big picture and say, “By the end of the year, I want to change this!” Because, when we start the work, it seems like a lot more effort is needed—definitely, more than we anticipated! Consequently, our motivation tends to wane as we see all the days out ahead of us. We are essentially treating what should be a marathon like a quick sprint. And the truth is, anyone would feel completely worn out by the first mile if they started a marathon by sprinting! It’s far better to measure our pace, so we don’t tire out too fast.

A better way is to set increments of tasks every seven days to achieve a specific goal at the end of the nine weeks. For example, you may wish to create a healthier lifestyle. This is the big picture goal. Now, you can break that down and say something like, “Each week, I will create a menu of healthy recipes and meal prep, so I am not tempted (out of convenience) to eat fast food.” This will help you focus on the present task while keeping your bigger goal in mind. 

When you set a goal/resolution in doable increments like this, you can focus strictly on your incremental goal for the week or month. The next week or month will come when it comes; you are in the “here and now” and need to focus on the first part of your goal. As a result, the small changes you make each month won’t feel intimidating, and you won’t feel as worn out by achieving them. Cheers to reaching your goals this year! STAY TUNED FOR MORE!