It’s hard to put constant, unrelenting effort into a relationship or career or hobby because you aren’t going to see results overnight. You aren’t going to get married after a first date. You aren’t going to get promoted after one productive day. You aren’t going to wake up with a six pack after exercising once, for the first time in months.
When you set a goal for yourself, you have to practice patience. You have to continue putting in the effort, even when it feels like it’s getting you nowhere. You have to come up with new ways to stay motivated, to stay dedicated, every single day. You can’t let yourself slack. You can’t let your negativity and self-doubt get the best of you. You have to keep chugging along, no matter how fruitless it feels.
Whenever you’re tempted to give up on your goals, you have to remind yourself why you set them in the first place. And you have to remind yourself the results don’t matter as much as the journey.
If you’re focused on your main, life-changing goal, then you’re going to feel overwhelmed. You’re going to wonder whether you’re taking too long to make progress. You’re going to psych yourself out. That’s why you have to focus on one thing at a time. Focus on what you can accomplish today and only today, because today is the only day that matters.
You should stay mindful about how far you’ve come instead of worrying about how much further you need to go. Don’t wait until your main goal is complete to pat yourself on the back. You should celebrate your small accomplishments because those little stepping stones are what’s going to lead you toward your ultimate destination.
When you spend an hour on the treadmill, you should be proud of yourself. When you write 1,000 words of your novel, you should be proud of yourself. When you text your crush first, you should be proud of yourself. Don’t underestimate the small steps you’ve been taking every single day. Give yourself credit for them. Get excited about them.
Right now, you might have doubts about whether you’re ever going to achieve your goals. You might wonder whether everything you’ve been doing even matters. You might have trouble sticking to a productive routine because you aren’t sure whether you’ve been wasting your time.
Even though it’s hard to stay motivated when there are so many what ifs dragging you down, you have to trust that eventually your effort is going to pay off. Eventually, you are going to realize why you spent so much time working toward your goals. Eventually, you are going to feel like your hard work has paid off.
Until then, you need to keep trying, even when you feel like giving up, even when you feel like your effort isn’t getting you anywhere, even when you feel like you might never reach the place you’ve been trying to land. Until then, you need to stay positive, stay hopeful, stay dedicated. 
