5 Easy Tips to Keep Moving Forward

Show of hands—who here has attained 100% self-discipline? No questions asked, if you want or need to do something, you can ALWAYS, IMMEDIATELY start and finish it. Me neither. Now, there are some of us (not me) who are far more advanced in this area, but even those unicorns can probably list out a few areas that they struggle with. It's human nature, and it's OK.

However, since we're in the business of moving forward, we're going to focus more on growth, and less on how far we have to go, with a few tips I’ve learned through the years, and ONE super crucial key to them all.

Hopefully, these will connect some dots for you and help you to take yet another step forward on your journey.

These 5 tricks help me (and the kiddos) tremendously when procrastination creeps in, motivation is just—gone, and we are once again the victims of analysis paralysis.

We all know that any kind of brain training and growth starts at our core, so I’ll start there with #1.

1. Fix your I AM statements.

This is #1 for a reason, and I cannot stress enough how crucial this is.

Let's just go ahead and CAP it all—

QUIT CALLING YOURSELF ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT YOUR HIGHEST SELF IS CAPABLE OF!

I'm not into manifesting whatever I desire into the universe, but I AM sold on what God says about the tongue holding the power of life and death—that those who love it will eat its fruit.

In other words: you speak it, you embrace it, and then you live it.

When you put anything negative beside the words “I AM,” not only are you psychologically keeping yourself from achieving anything more than what you say, but you also label the great I AM inside of you, with that as well. Ouch! If the Spirit of the living God resides in you, and you claim to be anything other than what He says you are, you are insulting Him, not just yourself.

I AM so stupid.

I AM always late.

I AM incapable of getting my crap together.

I AM stuck.

I AM hopeless/worthless.

Fill in the blanks with whatever you use most often and go ahead and call your BEST self that… call GOD that. Seriously?!

Start replacing self-deprecation with what you are working on achieving, even if you haven't made it there YET.

It's not prideful to claim what you are growing into!

I AM human and did something stupid, but I learn from my mistakes.

I AM capable of being on time. I AM flourishing and growing.

I AM moving forward.

I AM everything God says I am!

For you parents out there: you know how much it burns your heart when you hear your child say something hurtful about themselves? Now, imagine what your Heavenly Father feels. Speak life over yourself, just like you would your children, or anyone else you love. Life is in the power of the tongue—make sure you’re eating good stuff!

2. Start Small—Stay Consistent.

You knew I was going there, didn't you? As ick as it may be, there is an old adage that states, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." We know this, logically, but man, it can be hard to implement.

We want so badly to just fix that THING!

Lose the weight, achieve the goal, get the raise, find a new house, DANG, even just clean the house! However, we will never, EVER be able to just jump into an end result. Get it out of your head. It's normal to want this, but it's not logical… so OUT IT GOES!

We're logic-driven, intelligent people, right?

If you want to get healthier then identify your goal, deconstruct the process, and set up one small step to work on that, Every. Single. Day. Not once a week, not at big intervals, although these are good markers to see progress. Do it. Every day.

ONE thing a day—maybe it's as simple as eating one serving of veggies, taking vitamins every morning, or just using your lunch break to go for a 10-minute walk. Small steps move you forward, big steps all the time are not maintainable, and we want to keep moving forward. Embrace the baby steps and watch that elephant disappear!

3. DON'T Follow Your Heart.

Hang on, don't stop reading yet, there's a method to my madness.

This doesn't mean dismissing your emotions or giving up on things that bring you joy. What it does mean, is that you recognize they are ONLY indicators and tools. They were never meant to be our authority—our gut/conscious/Holy Spirit has that job. Our emotions tell us something is good, bad, suspicious, or dangerous, and they tell us if something hurts inside, or if we can enjoy the moment because MAN, it's awesome!

That's all great, but when it comes to moving forward, we need to feel, but only as much as that feeling needs to be processed, and then we have to apply facts and Truth. In other words, have the pity party, but then set an alarm for how long you’re going to let it last. Call the pity police on that rave, and then get back to living!

Emotions will keep you in bed for three hits of the snooze button. They will tell you that you really don't need to work out or get that assignment done—it's too hard, you're soooo tired, and you’re allowed to keep whatever bad habits you have because your motto is “Just Do You.”

Feelings will change every five minutes if given the chance, so what exactly makes us think we can depend on them?

I love the way Jeremiah 17:9 reads in the NASB. It says:

The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

This means that at our core, we will want the human, lazy, unhealthy, and often sinful things over their counterparts because they usually FEEL better in the moment. The result is everything we DON'T want for ourselves, though. So, yes, we have to give our feelings their time in the sun, we have to feel in order to heal, but then we need to gently guide them over to the logical side of things. It’s that tough love that we have to show ourselves.

4. Count Down From 5 and Befriend Your Auto-Pilot.

I love this one. I recently learned this 5-second rule from listening to an awesome author and speaker, Mel Robbins. If you can push past a little "language," and have 11 minutes, then I HIGHLY recommend hearing her explain this, or maybe just read the book. (I'm a bibliophile, so my copy from eBay is on the way, as we speak. I'll throw a review in my Book Review section when I'm done.) Her method can be applied to big things like business and life decisions, or small ones like doing a chore or getting out of bed!

Here's the idea and basic psychology: through conditioning and some neurological hardwiring, we are base-level responsive to things like alarms, countdowns, and anything that signals us for action. It doesn’t even have to be audible—ever see a countdown on a screen? There is an immediate mini jolt to the brain that tells it to GO whenever we experience these. Unfortunately, we usually talk ourselves out of things that we want to do in the first 5 seconds, or we train our brains to ignore the signal completely. I, for one, have WAY too many alarms on my phone and end up ignoring half of them. It’s a process.

Counting down from 5 works, if you want it to!

The trick is, don't give yourself an option. Once you hit #1, immediately tap into your auto-pilot and block out any emotions that try to convince you to do otherwise.

Let’s plug this into reality:

The alarm goes off at 6 a.m. Dang it!

OK, immediately:

5…4…3…2…1, sit up. Auto-pilot your legs over the edge of the bed and stand. Boom! Did it. Don't give yourself the option to feel the tiredness in those first few seconds. It's reflexive.

I really need to clean the kitchen, but man I want to keep scrolling. Today was awful!

OK. All I'm going to do is put away this plate in front of me (remember, start small).

5…4…3…2…1, grab the plate and stand up.

Nine times out of ten, once you have started a process, auto-pilot will start to kick in and help you out. The more you practice this mental trick, the easier it will be. Don’t go for perfection, and don't get discouraged. Just be consistent. It's the small steps that move you forward, and this mental hack is DEFINITELY one to try!

5. Reward the Process, Not Just the Achievement.

We have been conditioned from a young age to reward ourselves when we accomplish something. The problem is, that we don't always get to that finish line because our emotions override the perceived/felt value of the achievement. What to do? Reward the process!

Tap into Pavlov's psychology here and set up something you enjoy DURING what you have to get done, to train you to embrace the journey. Then, when you think about the work, you think about the treat!

Hate working out? Reward that time by listening to that one podcast or watching that one TV show that you love. (Note: This must be the ONLY time you do these things… if you're always indulging in it, it's not a reward and your brain will catch you in the trick.)

Need to get that project done? Make yourself a really amazing cup of coffee while you work on it and let that be the only time during the day that you allow yourself that treat. Listen to some energizing instrumental playlists on Spotify, and let the creativity flow!

You get the idea, right? Think of a way to make the process more enjoyable and you will eventually learn to enjoy the process. It's not self-manipulation if you're aware of it—or maybe it is, but hey, it works!

TOPPING OFF THIS 5 TIP MASTER-LIST:

I want to share with you the MASTER KEY that I have always found success in, that just gives each of these tips that extra boost toward achievement. My children can recite it by heart, and it always helps them out. It’s not hard, are you ready?

Here it goes:

START WITH WHAT YOU KNOW!

Tackling the hardest or most time-consuming thing first is absolutely necessary to be the most efficient and increase productivity.

[This is a great one called "Eating the Frog." Can you tell I'm from the South?]

However, that's different from what I’m talking about here.

Starting with what you know is the key to anything that seems overwhelming, confusing, or simply too big for your emotions to hop on board. All the tips we talked about can be tapped into a little easier if you simply start with this concept.

• Need to clean a clutter-filled room? Start with what you know. Do you see trash lying around? Go get a bag.
  

• Need to write that essay or proposal, but it just doesn't make sense yet? Start with what you know. Can you do 15 minutes of research or write an intro paragraph? Can you throw some numbers in the text that are definite, even if you have to edit the formatting later? What about an outline?
  

• Need to figure out a game plan but there are too many variables? Start with what you know. List out the things that are solid and expand the details from there.

Once you start to tackle THE THING, even if it's in the smallest way possible, and you start to see progress on the part you already knew how to do, your confidence will go up, auto-pilot will start to kick in, and BOOM- Psychology wins!

Will this all work perfectly every time? No.

Is it moving forward? Absolutely, yes!

Pick ONE of these to start today (remember, start small, don't try to eat this whole elephant-list at once).

I can’t wait to see you stepping into your goals! Let me know what you think in the comments below, and what worked for you. Or, if you have more tips to add to this list, I’d love to see if they could work for me too.

If you enjoyed this article, or it helped you in any way, please leave a comment below and subscribe for updates.

Until I dip my pen into the next corner of my mind, remember:

You are amazing, You are loved, and You WILL keep moving forward.

See you in ink.