supportive environment

Build a supportive environment.

When ads, magazines and other media over and over tell you that you can reach a goal very quickly – lose 30 pounds in 10 days! – you may start to expect such results. But in reality it is often a bit messier and takes more time and effort than that.

So start recreating the environment you live in. Discard some of your old input that just frustrates you in the end. Add new sources that support delaying gratification.

Start to read blogs that keep your motivation and optimism up but also focus on long term progress.
Read books from people who have done what you want to do. People who can paint a picture of what you may encounter based on experience and give you a more accurate time-frame for success.
Talk to the people in your life or outside of it that seem to be good at delaying gratification. See if they have some strategies and tips that can help you.

If you can get accountability partner that helps you to stay on track with for instance your diet or building your own business then that can be very helpful too.

Adjust your expectations with the help of your new environment and use the environment for support when you feel like giving up or giving into an instant gratification impulse.
Detach from of the outcome and learn to find the pleasure in the journey
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When I lost 26 pounds in 2009 and over the years as I have built this blog I have created and used an environment that supported the long term work. But when I have actually done the exercising or writing, day after day and week after week, I have detached from the outcome.

I first got this tip to detach from the ancient Sanskrit Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. It says:
“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction”

This tells me to understand that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in sitting on my hands and not taking action at all.
Basically, I do what I think is right and that is my responsibility. And then the rest (the possible results), well, that is not up for me to decide about or try to control. I let it go.

Now, I apply this when I do something. I can get motivated by future results before the doing the activity. But when I start doing any of those activities I detach and change how I think. I just focus on showing up and doing. This may sound a bit weird or hard but after a while it gets easier and easier to do that shift in your mind and to not start projecting into the future while you are doingsupportive environmentsupportive environment