All my life, I've always thought that inspiration is needed to become successful in something, even a small project like acing the board exam. But now in my mid-40s, I know that inspiration is overrated. Reaching success requires a series of steps organized in a way that is systematic and doable.
But, inspiration is needed to become motivated, right? Yes, motivation matters. However, it's easy to get demotivated and hence lose inspiration because of the mediocre things that need attention. We easily lose sense of the big picture. Before we know it, years have passed and we still have not reached our goal of becoming successful, especially in our studies.
I've seen people proclaim their new year's resolutions to the world on social media. I know they'd probably make the same resolution next year because a year can feel like a very long time in terms of inspiration.
We often only have strong inspiration for a couple of days at most. Then, life happens, and we lose steam. Normal life errodes inspiration when it becomes obvious that the gargantuan effort needed to reach the BIG goal feels too much.
And, also, there's this thing called Procrastination. We tend to procrastinate.
Small steps, especially those that lead to accumulating wealth, improving fitness, and gaining skills may not result in dramatic events, but they do lead to a better life. These steps require discipline, but not the BIG types of discipline like starving, going for days without carbs, etc. Just enough discipline to choose the healthier options.
One good choice. Daily. These small decisions accummulate to big ones. You can make good decisions even if you're not inspired at the moment or you're feeling miserable. If it's broken down into small steps, being on track for the big things can be easy.