Build Momentum Quickly to Unlock Your Potential: The Power of Easy Wins for Motivation and Productivity
One of the biggest challenges to staying motivated and productive is starting. Whether you're working on a big project or trying to build a new habit, it can be discouraging when you feel the need to ‘ease into it’. That's why it's important to build easy wins into your routine and jump on them quickly.
Easy wins are small, achievable goals that help you to build momentum and feel a sense of accomplishment. These small victories can be a powerful motivator, helping you to get started, stay focused and keep pushing forward, even when you're feeling unmotivated, sluggish and discouraged. Here are a few tips for building easy wins into your routine:
Start Small: The key to building easy wins is to start small. Don't set yourself up for failure by trying to tackle a huge project all at once.
Find Daily Quick Wins to Jumpstart Your Production: Make your bed. Wash a couple dishes. Organize your work station. This will help you feel like you’ve begun and over the hurdle of ‘easing into it’.
Celebrate Your Wins: Once you've achieved one of your easy wins, take a moment to celebrate. Whether you treat yourself to a cup of coffee or take a short break, recognizing your accomplishments is important. Celebrating your wins helps you to feel motivated and stay on track. When you see progress, you feel more confident and motivated to continue working towards your goals.
Track Your Progress: Keeping track of your progress is another great way to build easy wins. Whether you use a journal, a calendar, or an app, tracking your progress will help you to see how far you've come. This can be a powerful motivator and help you to stay focused. I’ve recently restarted using Habitica to keep me accountable in a fun way with friends. It involves social pressure, packages it into a gamified UI, and gives just enough ‘fun’ customization to keep me interested.
Establish Routine: By having a routine or habit that starts your focus sessions, you can enhance your ease of entering flow state focus and create a positive feedback loop. Quick wins create a positive feedback loop, where each victory motivates you to keep pushing forward. This can help you stay motivated and continue building momentum towards your long-term goals.
Here are some quick wins you can incorporate into your daily schedule.
Making your bed in the morning
Drinking a glass of water as soon as you wake up
Doing a short workout or stretching session
Eating a healthy breakfast
Spending a few minutes decluttering your workspace
Taking a walk during your lunch break
Meditating for 5 minutes before bed
Reading for 15 minutes before bed
Keeping a gratitude journal - 1 quick post per day
Learning a new word in your target language
Doing a random act of kindness for someone
Cooking a healthy dinner at home
Writing a to-do list for the next day
Spending time outside in nature
Practicing mindfulness throughout the day.
Alone, these individual tasks are nothing to gawk at. They are neither difficult nor challenging but they set the tone for your day. They can jumpstart your productivity when you are surfing the internet mindlessly. They can shock you out of complacency as you scroll your phone mindlessly. They can get you to actively and consciously make decisions, use your body, or attune to the world.
Although easy and small wins alone, they are the small snowball at the top of the mountain that easily begins the roll.
Your job is to make it even easier for that snowball to roll.
So why not give it a try and see how easy wins can help you to stay motivated and productive?