We’re almost two months into 2022 and you might be looking at your dormant projects, or unfinished certifications you paid for with so much excitement wondering how little you got done this year !

Well, a change in perspective could help you turn around those dormant projects into real wins you can celebrate.

So whenever, you define your goals, you have this picture of what success would look like: maybe it’s completing your education, a successful project, losing weight, more Twitter followers, a new job, name it.

So you internalize that goal and start working towards it. But then you start running into difficulty, and that momentum starts to fade. Eventually, you end up either procrastinating or giving up completely.

Why? Because you first internalized the picture of success without defining the process it would take to achieve the success. That’s why when you start and things get hard and don’t look like the image of success you had in your mind, you either procrastinate, give up or end up hating the process.

I realized this disconnect when I noticed that I’d been struggling with building an e-commerce website. When I started, I gave myself a very short time limit to complete the project.

However, after some time, I ran into challenges that meant I’d have to first study React and Node.JS fundamentals. This meant that the project would take more time and wouldn't meet the deadline I’d set.

So at this point, I struggled with the image I had of having a successful e-commerce project, complete with a string of articles I’d planned on writing to document the process. I ended up wasting more time feeling bad about my progress instead of focusing on the daily wins I’d gotten by consistently working on my project.

So by the end of October, I'd only done 20% of the project. But in retrospect, I realized I am successful in many little ways such as:

• Knowledgeable in React concepts such as Hooks, Routes.

• Creating a Node server and using it in the React application.

• Better understanding of JavaScript properties, functions and methods.

• Working with Redux.

• And I made my first contribution to Open Source!

The disconnect Between the Process and Success

This disconnect between the image of success and the consistency it takes to become successful is what hinders most people from actually achieving their goals. After all, even the people you perceive to be successful or you look up to mostly show you the end product.

Also, you rarely perceive consistency as a major contributor to success because it’s not glamorous and no one can document every minute of their day, how they utilize their time and how they overcame the quiet mental hurdles they encountered.

Furthermore, the media’s portrayal of success - fame, financial success, magazine features - does not capture the real grind that it took to get there.

So by the time you see a successful person or project, you’re probably seeing only 0.0001% of what it took for them to be successful. You’re not seeing the minute-by-minute actions and decisions it took to get them there.

The Sauce is in Your Consistency

So to just give a tiny snippet of why consistency is the shortest route to reaching your goal and greatly influences your chances of success, here are a few reasons why:

• Consistency breaks down large projects into simple actionable tasks that you can do in a short amount of time.

• By consistently working on your goal, you identify problems much earlier before they compound into bigger issues. The net effect is you save your future self from dealing with compounded issues you had not identified earlier.

• Hence why, consistency helps in failing and recovering faster. It’s easier to recover from smaller failures than bigger and often costly mistakes.

• You refine your methods to achieve your goals. Let’s say, you want to build a new software project or write an article. If you consistently work on it on a daily basis, you’ll refine your problem solving skills, identify patterns, and reduce errors.

• Consistent effort, no matter how small, builds muscle memory because the mental blocks you experienced when you started become less daunting.

• You complete challenging tasks faster and with more confidence. According to a study published in the Nature Neuroscience journal, consistent training induces structural changes in your brain due to stronger neural connections formed through repetitive and consistent actions.

Of course, there are many other factors that contribute to success so train your mind to not internalize success at face value; always dig deeper to know the process it took to get there.

That’s why even as you define your goals, you cannot compare yourself to that of someone who had a leg up in life, has experienced fewer challenges or had more exposure than you. Instead, pick what’s relevant to you from someone else’s journey and apply to your life.

Focus on Consistently Scoring the Quick Wins

So how do you proceed? As you write down your goals, also write down the process it takes to get there. Be as granular as possible, down to the daily tasks you need to do, even if it takes only 5 minutes to complete the activity.

Finally, always treat the small wins and achieving the daily tasks as equal to achieving your bigger goals.

In Conclusion:

Yes, you can have tangible wins in less than two months. How?

• Breakdown the big goals into daily tasks that you can do in less than 5 minutes.

• Then, focus on building consistency. Commit to doing the work at least once per day.

• Always celebrate completing the daily tasks as you build towards the bigger goals. It’ll give you the much needed momentum to stay motivated.

• Document the small wins - these are important milestones that will help you finetune your skills