Courage + Consistency + Confidence = Goal Achievement

You want to achieve. We all do. The question is, why do we fall short of our goals? Why is it that when we first start off on the path towards a goal, there is so much momentum, but then overtime, this momentum dissipates. It eventually feels like we are pushing a boulder up hill, struggling to keep the immense weight of the rock from crushing us, while frantically trying to drive our legs into the Earth to continue moving forward. I get it. I’ve been there.

I believe there are 3 aspects to goal achievement and in order for you to truly accomplish something, you have to keep all 3 in mind. I’m going to explain these 3 components from the perspective of your brain and its neuronal connections, which should give an insight into why it can be so difficult. Let’s get started!

Courage:

Your brain works based off of electrical signals. Through the combination of synapses, axons, dendrites and a host of other chemicals, your brain is able to send electrical signals to different portions of the brain, which then activate different actions, thoughts, desires and pretty much everything you experience in life.

This is important because if you are starting something new, you will have to create the brain circuitry needed to accomplish your goal. Since this brain circuitry does not exist, the manifestation of the goal requires courage. Courage is the emotion associated with the beginning of work. The courage to get started. Courage to begin firing the brain signals, which will create the neuronal connections that will ultimately lead to the physical realization of your goals.

Courage is also needed to stop existing circuitry from firing. If you have bad habits, that means there is a pattern of neuronal activity that is not benefiting you. Circuits are firing, but you don’t want them to fire. Here again, work is needed and that first manifests in the form of courage. Courage to stop what you are currently doing and do a different activity.

Courage gets you started. Courage gives you the energy to say, “I don’t like this and this is what i’m going to do about it!” Courage pushes you to create the plan. If you didn’t have courage, you wouldn’t believe you could change. You would believe that you are stuck with the current neuronal activity and thus stuck with your current life. With courage on your side, you have the wind of positive momentum in your sails, and you can utilize it to create a gameplan of action.

Consistency:

The more a neuronal circuit fires in your brain, the more hardwired that circuit becomes. Let’s use an example that most of us can relate to. Walking. Have you ever seen a toddler learning to walk? They wobble, they fall, they pick themselves up and continue forward. They are building the neuronal connections associated with walking. Since they do not currently exist, it takes work to figure out how to fire the right connections in right sequence in order to successfully walk.

Day in and day out, that toddler keeps trying. Keeps going. Keeps firing those neuronal connections until one day the child figures it out. Through consistency, the correct circuit has been found. Now every time the toddler walks, the circuits will fire. As these circuits fire, they get stronger and stronger. They require less work. They require less thought. It gets to a point where it just happens. The neuronal connections fire effortlessly. That’s the power of consistency.

It’s easy to use a child as an example for consistency. They don’t have any day-to-day responsibilities, they don’t have any pre-existing neuronal circuitry firing, all they have to do is have the courage to walk and attempt to move forward. It’s fair to say, our lives are not the same.

In order to maintain consistency, you must think of why you would be inconsistent. There are 2 main categories that lead to inconsistency:

• Internal inconsistency
• External inconsistency

Internal Inconsistency:

Your brain is very efficient. When you want to do something new, you are fighting against pre-wired neuronal circuitry. Change requires work and your brain prefers to maintain its efficiency and maintain the current electrical patterns. The manifestation of this need to maintain efficiency are internal inconsistencies.

Internal inconsistencies are thoughts that come up, which try to sway you into maintaining the current brain signals, versus putting in work and changing the signals. Let’s use an example:

It’s Sunday afternoon. You are sitting on your couch, and you tell yourself, “Tomorrow morning, I am going to go for a run.” While sitting on your couch, it is easy to make these plans. There are no new neuronal connections that have to fire in this moment and no existing neuronal activity has to be stopped. Monday morning rolls around and the thoughts appear. “I’d rather stay in bed.” “I can go later in the day.” “Sleep is more important than going out for exercise.” “It’s cold.” “It’s dark.” and on and on these thoughts can go.

These thoughts are internal inconsistencies. It is your brain trying to maintain efficiency. Your brain does not want to change. In the morning there are neuronal patterns that have fired for a very long time. Your brain does not want to change this, but you do. In order to win this battle, you have to think of what internal inconsistencies will arise. What excuses will my brain conjure up to stop me. Before those excuses arise, you have to have a rebuttal to them. If I know in the morning, my brain is going to bring up the thoughts of staying in bed, I need to have a battle plan in place to fight this.

It’s also important to pick and choose your battles. Maybe battling with the sleep neuronal circuitry may not be the best move. Those circuits have been firing for a long time and are incredibly hard-wired. Changing those require a lot of energy. The more energy that is required, the more your brain is going to put up a fight. It might be better to move the run to the afternoon, where you can battle with a less hard-wired set of neuronal connections.

External Inconsistency:

External inconsistencies, as the name would imply, come from the outside. These are the things that are going to pop up from the world around you, which may cause you to be inconsistent.

You want to not drink on weekends, but your friends do. You want to go to the gym after work, but your boss asks you to stay late. You want to read 10 pages, but your normal reading area is unusually noisy today.

These are all external inconsistencies. These things will derail you from being consistent and building the new neuronal connections you want to create. Sometimes, they just pop up and you have to deal with them in the moment, but a lot of the time, you can plan ahead, Planning ahead…that’s the key to consistency.

If you can plan for both the internal and external inconsistencies that are going to come up, the more equipped you will be to fire the neuronal connections that you truly want. Once these connections consistently fire, you gain a level up. This level up is called confidence.

Confidence:

Confidence is like getting a star in Super Mario Bros. Confidence occurs when you have consistently fired a pattern of neuronal connections for an extended period of time. These neuronal connections become strong and fire effortlessly.

Flashback to the toddler learning to walk. There is no confidence, however, with consistency, neuronal connections start firing and then once hard-wired, confidence emerges. Walking becomes effortless. No need to put in a tremendous amount of work to find the right neuronal patterns, they already exist and can fire without much thought.

When we have confidence in our ability to do something, we are more inclined to do that activity. I mentioned our brains are remarkably efficient. It does not want to change because change requires work, which makes the brain less efficient. Your brain will re-enforce its current existing neuronal pathways for the sake of efficiency. If the existing pathway is something we want and we have been consistently firing this pathway, it will manifest itself in the form of confidence. You want to go to the gym and have been consistently going to the gym, you will feel confidence in your ability to go to the gym.

This confidence will encourage you to keep doing the activity, which will keep firing the neuronal pathways, which will in turn strengthen that pathway and build more confidence. This then creates a positive feedback loop. When you’ve got this, goal achievement is right around the corner.

Courage, consistency and confidence equal goal achievement. Courage gets you started. Consistency builds the required pathways. Confidence reinforces the new pathways. This repeated will lead to goal achievement.

-Kelvin Harrylall