Staying motivated when results are slow to show

There is a stretch in almost any worthwhile effort where you are doing the work and nothing seems to be happening. While you are putting in the calls, the writing, the practice, and the outreach, the numbers just don't seem to be moving. This stretch is often where people stop because they expected effort and results to arrive together, and when that doesn't happen, they assume the effort was wasted.

Results almost always lag effort. There is a delay built into nearly everything that matters, and the delay is where motivation gets tested. If you understand the delay and plan for it, you can keep going through that important,and often quiet, stretch, instead of quitting before it pays off.

Set goals you can control

Goals are often set as outcomes: reach a revenue target, gain a number of clients, hit a follower count. While those are fine as destinations, they make poor daily fuel, because you do not fully control them. You can do everything right and still miss an outcome on schedule, because outcomes can depend on timing, other people, and other circumstances that are beyond your control.

In addition to outcome goals, set process goals alongside them. A process goal is something within your control, such as sending 10 follow-up emails in the week, publishing one article, making five calls a day, or practicing for 30 minutes. You can succeed at a process goal regardless of outside factors because you're doing it. Evaluate yourself on whether you did the work, not on whether the work has paid off yet. Your process success is what keeps you moving.

Track the leads, not only the results

There are two kinds of indicator measures: lags and leads. Lagging indicators are the results (i.e. the sales and the signups) and they show up later. Leading indicators are the activities that produce them (i.e. the outreaches) and they show up right away.

If you only watch the lagging measures, it can feel like nothing is working, and that can drag your motivation because those numbers are the last to move. If you track the leading measures as well, your activity provides the honest evidence that you are still building, even if the results are quiet.

Shrink the timeline you judge yourself on

When there is a large goal, it can sometimes be discouraging because the distance between where you are and where you want to be seems enormous. If you stare at that large goal every day, your mind can easily become overwhelmed and you can feel like a failure on a day when you did solid work. The solution here is to shorten the window. Evaluate yourself on whether you accomplished what you set out to do for the week. A week is long enough to show a pattern and short enough that you can influence it. Keeping on track with your shortened timelines, and letting those good weeks stack up, will lead to the large goal being met.

Expect a slow build

Progress is rarely linear. More often it is flat for a time and then moves in a jump. The flat part does not mean the approach is broken; rather it is the usual path of building something, whether that is an audience, a skill, or a book of clients. If you expect the flat part in advance, you will not misread it as a failure when it arrives. The flat stretch is often a decisive time, testing whether you can accept these quiet times before achieving the success.

Keep the standard consistent when feedback is quiet

One of the hardest things to do is to maintain your standards when no one is watching or nothing is responding. It's easy to do good work when results are rolling in and people are noticing. It is much harder to do the same work on a day when the numbers are flat and no feedback has come in for weeks. Your standards and consistency count most when you are filling this delayed period between effort and result. Decide on the standard you are going to hold, and hold it always, regardless of the circumstances.

When you put this together, the approach is more manageable.

• Set goals you control.
• Measure the activity, not just the payoff.
• Judge yourself on the week, not the whole distance.
• Expect flat stretches and plan for them.
• Keep standards steady even when nothing is answering.

You will still have days when the lack of results is discouraging, which is completely normal. Just keep focused on the next piece of work in front of you and let the delay run its course. Motivation tends to return once you see movement, and movement tends to come to the people who kept working through the part where it seemed like nothing was happening.