Why Beginners Give Up

Although staying the course after starting is one of the most important parts of learning anything. It is often where aspirations go to die. 

You put in a few weeks of work and when you look at where you are relative to your goal. 

You see a chasm too great to cross.

So you give up.

What if I told you the reason that you felt like giving up wasn’t that your progress was lacking?

But your mindset was?

Definition: Level Mentality

 A Level mentality is seeing your growth in terms of stages that lead you to an end goal. Not just the end goal.

What sparked this idea?

Elden Ring

Elden Ring is a video game in a genre that prides itself on how difficult it is. A boss can take hours and dozens of tries to defeat

While playing I thought about how it’s structured.

  1. Intro- The screen has prompts that tell you how to control your character
  2. Kinda easy enemies- these enemies have prolonged attack patterns that you can dodge with relative ease. Though they can still kill you.
  3. Hard boss- This boss will require memorization of attack patterns and many tries. Frustration will be high.
  4. Harder enemies
  5.  A harder boss
  6. Etc

You don’t go into the Elden Ring ready to take on the final boss. You have to work your way up. One milestone after another. 

This made me think about my then, nonexistent writing career,  this way.

Why was I so eager to become a well-known freelancer when I hadn’t put in the work to become a consistent one?

How would I be able to handle the success I wanted if I couldn’t deal with what I had now?

This caused a complete mindset shift

How I Shifted My Mentality

First I realized that when motivated, I created all these intricate plans. That in the moment seemed like they would jump-start my success. 

But Motivated-Me was in a 30-70 split with Normal-Me.

So I would enter this spiral of planning and failing to act on my off days. Then beat me up for not following through.

Then it dawned on me:

Ground level = consistency. 

To break this I planned from the bottom up instead of the top down. Planning around what I could do. Even on my off days,

My first milestone was to write for 20 minutes every day for a month. 

After I hit that milestone I began to stack. Looking for gigs, posting on social media, etc.

Now my ground floor has raised significantly to the point where I’m doing a lot more than even a month ago.

Without milestones, people won’t feel like they are moving fast enough toward their goals.

Marathons would be even more hellish if they only had a start and an end marker.

How can this be translated to any goal?

The easiest milestones at Level 1 are time-based, not results-based. 

Ex: I will do X every day for # of weeks.

Why is it effective?

It builds confidence.

Why won’t most people do it?

Because it requires them to fight the urge to find shortcuts. To create elaborate plans when motivated that will fail on bad days.

After that, it’s just adding milestone after milestone. Until you get to a point where you can add intricacy and efficiency without losing consistency.

Conclusion

In the beginning, it’s not about what you do. It’s about doing something at all. Showing up for yourself and gaining the confidence that will propel you forward.

When you are at Level 1 don’t look at the final boss. Look towards levels 2, 3,4, 5, and so on.

Starting will be the best thing you ever did but continuing will be the most satisfying.

Does this help you think about achieving your goals in a new way? Or am I preaching to the choir? 

Let me know below and have a great day.