There are 2 main human motivators.

Fear, to move away from a pain.

Desire, to move towards an objective.

In short, if you’re not making progress, you’re either not scared enough, or you don’t want it enough.

Which means that you have not defined your goal with sufficient clarity.

We all know that an objective should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound. IE you know what you what, how you know you will get there, or make progress, you will be actually able to do it, it fits with your current life and you know when. And of course, a smart goal can be a subset of a larger life goal.

However, the thing that people often miss when planning goals is the why. Why is it important that you achieve this, where is the deep motivation?

As an example, a client may want to lose weight. We can set the goal: 20lbs in 5 months, and then the work required to get there. But we may not understand why they want it. What is their deep need? If it is just peer pressure then is that enough? Is it to improve their health? That’s different, that can be stronger.

Find the why. Find the deep driver. Find it in yourself and on the hard days, hold it up, take a breath and go again.