I love Google Analytics. For those of you who don’t know about this online tool for webmasters, it allows you to keep track of how many people are visiting your website. It works in practically real time and it can give specifics on how many people have read each individual blog post, what country and city they are viewing it from, and how they got to your site. It is a very precise tool for calculating the number of eyeballs you are attracting. It gives you results.
Scientists look for measurable results
Of course popularity isn’t everything. I could write a post that I know would be tremendously popular on Google - Lose 30 lbs in a Week by Eating Pizza and Ice Cream – but that’s not my purpose. I don’t want simple numbers. I want to be able to make a difference in people’s lives. These types of results aren’t easily measurable but they are just as rewarding – like having someone email you about how something you wrote touched them or changed their life.
Results are motivating. You have a goal, you perform an action, you get a positive result – bing! It makes you want to do it again and keep striving towards your goal. Good results make it a lot easier to continue a task that requires either time, effort or both.
But what if you’re getting no results at all? For instance, my illness makes me quite thin. I’m always trying to gain weight. The heaviest I have ever been was when I was 18 years old. I was lifting weights, drinking tons of protien drinks and eating everything in sight. I was 145lbs. As soon as I slowed down my massive intake of food – even for a day or two – I’d slide down to 135lbs. To this day I still have a hard time cracking 135. I can do it but it requires a concerted effort to eat a lot which ultimately makes me feel uncomfortable and sick. I can’t do it consistently. Not seeing results can certainly affect your motivation.
Of course I’m the minority. Most people have the opposite problem – losing weight.
So what do we do when we set a goal, begin an action towards that goal then don’t see results? The temptation is say to yourself what’s the use and stop doing what you’re doing.
Before you quit, here’s some questions you can ask yourself:
- Have I given it a realistic amount of time? Expecting to lose 20lbs after 15 minutes peddling a bike likely isn’t going to happen, so if that’s the result you’re expecting, it’s best to change your expectations to something more realistic.
- Are there other beneficial results to what I’m doing that maybe I’m not measuring? Excercise may not be shedding the pounds you expected, but it may be improving your overall health (muscle tone, cardiovascular etc.)
- Is what I’m doing causing me any harm? If not, you might want to continue doing it, at least for a while, and see what happens. Try to keep your motivation up.
- What am I giving up by continuing this action? Is it taking up a lot of time? Is there a better action I could be taking towards the same goal?
By asking yourself these questions you are more likely to make the right decision about whether to quit what you are doing and do something different to achieve your goal.
Remember though, if the goal is important enough, don’t abandon it – just change the actions by which you get there. If we use the weight loss example, maybe you need to both exercise AND eat healthier food. Often combining one action with a complimentary action is a quicker the way to success.
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