#140: Navigating the Long Haul: Strategies for Endurance

Are you staring down a seemingly endless stretch of time or a monumental task that feels insurmountable? How do you maintain your focus and keep your spirits up when the road ahead seems never-ending?

In this episode, I delve into the art of enduring the long haul. I'll share with you a powerful strategy that can transform your perspective and make even the most challenging journeys feel achievable.

Discover the secret to conquering those daunting, never-ending periods in life by breaking them down into manageable segments. I'll illustrate this approach with personal anecdotes, from parenting an empty-nest child to pursuing a four-year ministerial training program. Learn how to shift your mindset and embrace shorter milestones, finding excitement and momentum as you near each finish line.

Tune in to gain the valuable skill of breaking down life's daunting challenges into manageable chunks, allowing you to conquer any long-term goal with confidence and enthusiasm. Don't miss this episode's insights on transforming your perspective and tackling life's longest journeys with ease.

As always, thanks for listening!

You can find me here:

WEBSITE: https://www.thorchallgren.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/thorchallgren

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

In a previous career I was a screenwriter and facing a blank page was probably about the hardest thing that you could ever imagine, because you had 115 blank pages ahead of you that you had to fill. Not only that you had to fill, but they had to be good. Every page had to make you want to read the next one, and you knew that, while, like, you could sort of maybe do those first 10 pages and you knew that maybe the last 20 pages you could both through, you knew there was going to be a big chunk in the middle that you had to work through, and so the challenge that you faced was just imagining that entire blank section of pages. So how do you get through that when you feel like you can't get through that long haul from beginning to end? That's today's episode. Welcome to.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Every Day, a New Thought. I'm Thor Chalgren, and every weekday I share a new thought, a new perspective. Today I want to talk about facing the blank page, and it's not just the writing metaphor, that project that I described at the front. I use that as an example. Really, it could be anything where you are facing the prospect of something that feels like it's going to go on forever. I'll give you another example. It's September. So many parents who've had kids go off to college, they are now faced with the prospect of maybe they haven't seen their kids since late August and they may not see them again until they come home for Thanksgiving. So what is that Two and a half months? I know when I was very first an empty nester, that prospect of late August until end of November, that felt like forever and I didn't feel like I could get through that until I had the chance to see my daughter again. So basically we're talking about anything that can feel like it's a long period of time. I'll give you another personal example. Today I am beginning the second year of my ministerial training program. This is a program where I started at last year, so this is year two, and actually before I even began those two years, I had another two years of training and certification before I even got to that point. So I guess technically this is the fourth year of a four year program. But again, my point is I could look at this where I am right now and think, gosh, you know, I've got nine months ahead of me before I finish the program.

Speaker 1: 3:10

So the question then becomes how do you manage a long period of time where it seems like it's going to be forever before you get to some end result? Here's the answer Break it down into sections that you can manage. Yesterday, in episode 139, I talked about how knowing the distance in a traffic jam can make all the difference. If you know, for instance, that when you come into a traffic jam, that it's going to be a mile and then traffic will clear up, that makes you feel better because you know what that distance is, you've actually taken an unknown and made it known. It's the same thing here.

Speaker 1: 3:52

If I break down my big time period into smaller chunks, then all I have to do is just focus on one of those chunks at a time, for instance, on my ministerial program. I don't have to spend nine months, I don't have to think of it as nine months. I just have to focus on, say, between now and Christmas, and then I get a break In my mind. I focus on these next couple of months and everything else I put out on my mind, because for right now, that's all I'm focused on. If I'm writing my next book, I don't have to focus on the entire blank book ahead of me. I just have to focus on writing one chapter. Just focus on that, and everything else I'll put aside, and when I come to it I will, but for now it's one chapter. Or in my example of being an empty Nestor parent, if I'm waiting for my kid to come home for Thanksgiving, I don't have to think of this as, oh my gosh, it's two and a half months before I see them again. All I need to do is get myself to mid October, because now when I'm in mid-October, it's easier for me to say, oh, thanksgiving's only a month away, it's just weeks away, and then I'll see them again. So you see how you can kind of do that is trick yourself into breaking it down into a smaller chunk of time, because the truth is, when you get toward the end of that chunk of time, in a lot of cases adrenaline or momentum or excitement is going to take over. So really all you're doing is sort of guarding your mindset in that middle section where it can seem like it will go on forever. So it's easier to manage your mindset if you think in smaller time increments. You could say something like all I have to do now is and then fill in the blank. So you might. In my case, I might say all I have to do now is focus on that first chapter. All I have to do now is get myself to mid-October. All I have to do now is focus on my studies between now and Christmas, or even now in Thanksgiving, because, honestly, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, even that chunk of time will feel like it moves much faster.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I recently did an episode where I talked about the idea of a two-month purpose. That was in show number 135. I like the two-month purpose because it's easier to manage your mindset. You can see the beginning, the middle and the end. You can hold it all in your mind and not freak out about something seeming so big. So I encourage you to check out that episode. I also talk in that episode about a free training series that I have where I talk about the two-month purpose and I put it in the bigger context of putting yourself first. I'll put that link in the show notes, the show description, below. So when you are in this place, manage your mindset by saying all I have to do is and then break it down into smaller increments. All I have to do now is say that's the show for today. I hope you liked it? If you did, please hit like. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening to the podcast, please subscribe or follow the show on your favorite podcast app. Until next time. Thanks for listening.