How goal-stacking got me out of a motivation rut

Motivation comes and go, but consistency is what will get you the results. That’s a principle I’ve tried to live by for as long as I can remember. For the most part, it has served me pretty well. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that being consistent while being unmotivated can be energy draining. And when mental and physical energy is lacking, it can be difficult to be consistent.

Earlier this year, I found myself in a bit of a motivation rut. I’d had a very busy six months of work. As a freelancer, this is something that I’m definitely grateful for and don’t take for granted. When things started to slow down for a little bit, I figured that I would finally have the headspace to get started on some side projects and goals that had been brewing in my head. Yet despite being excited about them all, I struggled to find the energy (and motivation) to take consistent action.

Identifying the source

After a little bit of introspection, I suspected that two things were getting in my way.

First, my emotional attachment to the goals gave me too many excuses not to start. I wanted my side projects to succeed, so I could find all sorts of reasons as to why it just wasn’t quite the right time to start. And this led to the second point: I struggled to break down the goals into smaller steps, because I couldn’t stop ruminating on what might happen if the first step didn’t work out.

The solution was simple. I needed to be less emotionally invested in the outcome, and take those small steps consistently. But what’s simple isn’t always easy. After years of writing and editing about productivity, I’ve learned that sometimes you need to take the long way to get somewhere. In the past, I experienced many flow-on benefits from taking on a challenging and scary physical goal.

So I committed to training for my first boxing fight.

Establishing a routine and confidence

The fight I signed for required me to commit to a 12-week training camp, where I trained alongside other fighters of similar level (which in my case, is extremely novice as I’d only started boxing seriously for about six months prior). For the first four weeks, I didn’t have the energy to do anything else beyond training and my freelance work. It took a little bit of time to get my body and mind to adapt to the physical load, dial in my nutrition, and understand how to recover. All so I can do it all over again the next day.

But halfway through the training camp, my mind and body started to adapt. I noticed that I started to have more mental energy to work towards the side projects I’d been putting off. First, I was able to break down my goals into tiny, little, doable steps. Once I did that, I could finally start to take small actions. I also stopped overthinking about what would happen.

The flow-on effects of setting a low-stakes goal

I was familiar with the concept of habit-stacking, a term that means stacking new behaviors to existing habits. For example, say you have a habit of eating dinner at 6 p.m. You can “stack” going for a walk after your meal if you wanted to add some more physical activity to your day.

But I wondered whether there was a similar rationale when it comes to goal-stacking. I was especially curious about the impact that setting a low-stakes goal can have on working towards a higher stakes one.

Dr. Gina Cleo, habit researcher and author of The Habit Revolution, said that there is.

“When we take on a low-stakes goal, like training for a boxing match or learning a new skill just for fun, it can reignite our sense of agency,” she says. “We experience progress, mastery, and momentum in one domain, which spills over into others.”

“This happens because success triggers a release of dopamine, the brain’s motivation and reward chemical. Once that circuit is active, it improves focus, confidence, and willingness to take on challenges elsewhere. So a seemingly small or playful goal can become a catalyst for renewed energy and drive in the areas that feel ‘heavier’ or higher-pressure,” she goes on to say.

The power of taking small actions

The idea of mastery in boxing feels a long, long way away. But as a novice fighter, I’m acutely aware of every incremental and tiny progress. I’m still a few weeks away from my fight, but stacking a series of small improvements week by week has triggered a sense of momentum. I could then leverage that to take action in other parts of my life, like starting my side projects. Dr. Cleo explains, “Progress creates what psychologists call a ‘success loop.’ As you start ticking off small wins, your brain registers that you’re capable, and that confidence fuels motivation for other goals.”

It was a powerful reminder that sometimes, all it takes is a series of small actions to trigger bigger ones. This is a practice that Leo Shen, engineering graduate turned elite amateur boxer (and my boxing coach), implements in his own life.

For him, the foundational goal is finding small ways to control your environment. That might mean putting your running shoes and socks by your bed so that it’s easier to go for a run. Or it could look like eating a nutritious breakfast that nourishes you so you’ll continue to do the same for lunch and dinner.

He says, “You create the environment where you’re more likely to be disciplined, and then everything falls into place. Once you control the environment, then it becomes a habit. You have to stack the dominoes before you can push them over.”

Building a strong foundation

Pursuing a challenging physical goal has forced me to do exactly that—control my environment so that I can train and recover to the best of my ability. In turn, those healthy practices have given me the mental and physical energy to make small progress on my professional goals.

I know that regardless of what happens on fight night, I’ve built a foundation and a routine that I can rely on. And as a result, I’ll have the energy (and motivation) to take consistent action towards something that once felt too overwhelming to start.

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