If you could regularly complete your most meaningful projects, what would that mean for you?

For many people, it would mean creating the impact they want and going much further in fulfilling their purpose in life. It would go a long way toward creating the life they desire.

But, of course, there are some tough challenges that stand in the way:

• Self-doubt and fear of failure
  
• Distraction, avoidance, procrastination
  
• Focusing on smaller, less important (but easier) tasks
  
• Not making time to focus on the project
  
• Feeling overwhelmed and not taking action
  
• Losing focus and getting discouraged
  
• A sense of lack of progress and meaninglessness
  

These challenges get in the way for all of us. In this post, I’ll share essential strategies for dealing with these challenges.

Get Clear on Purpose

The mistake many people make at the start is not having a clear direction. What would you like to accomplish this year? If you set a direction for yourself, you’ll have a clear sense of purpose.

If you don’t know what project to take on this year, spend a few days contemplating it. Then just choose something. Anything. It’s better to choose something based on your gut feeling than to get stuck in indecision and choose nothing.

Create a Weekly Ritual

You can become really good at completing projects if you develop a few key habits. The first one is a weekly planning ritual:

• Review how your last week went (did you hit your targets?)
  
• Note what you learned and what adjustments are needed
  
• Make commitments for the coming week
  
• Block off time to focus on the project and fulfill your commitments
  

This should take about 20 minutes each week. I recommend doing this on Sundays or Mondays.

If you do this ritual every week, you will move your project forward.

Get Good at Daily Focus Sessions

The next habit to form is daily focus sessions (let’s say, 5 days a week). This is the time you’ll spend working on the project — whether it’s 30-minute sessions or multiple hours. Here’s the habit:

• Every morning, spend a few minutes clarifying what you’re going to accomplish today (in relation to your weekly project commitments)
  
• Also get clear on which time block you’ll use
  
• When the time block starts, practice focusing on the project with as little distraction or avoidance as possible
  

This takes practice. You won’t be perfect at it at first. Just keep practicing.

Learn to Emotionally Regulate

The main reason people don’t do the focus sessions — and thus fail at their projects — is that there are emotions they don’t want to deal with. Fear, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, a sense of meaninglessness, etc. These emotions are natural and universal, but we often don’t know how to handle them.

The answer is simple: emotional regulation. All you have to do is acknowledge the feeling, allow yourself to feel it, breathe, and soothe yourself. If you can do this, the feeling becomes less intense and less of a big deal.

Then you can move forward with the next step in your project. Open a document, take the first action. It becomes much more possible if you learn to soothe the emotion that would normally block you.

Get Support & Accountability

Another habit that people resist is accountability — making commitments to one or more people, and then holding yourself accountable for how you did with those commitments.

We resist this because we fear looking bad or feeling bad about not sticking to our commitments. But we’re practicing emotional regulation! So it’s okay if we feel bad sometimes — it’s part of any meaningful work.

So instead, make yourself more effective by using the habit of accountability to move yourself forward and to see where you’re getting stuck.

If you’re getting stuck, get some support from others. Let yourself be humbled, and don’t feel like you need to do this alone. It’s hard enough as it is.

Celebrate Progress & Milestones

A great habit to form is to celebrate any progress, no matter how small. We’re not taught to do this, but if you do, it will help you feel a sense of progress. There’s nothing more motivating than feeling like you’re making progress.

Celebrate small victories and big milestones. Make it a non-negotiable habit.

Embrace Challenges to Create Transformation

You will inevitably encounter obstacles at some point. Maybe at many points. This might be taken as a sign of failure and feel discouraging. But instead, use these challenges to grow beyond your current limitations.

For example, if you’re avoiding your focus sessions because you’re afraid of failure… allow yourself to take a deeper look at this fear. Notice how it has shaped your life. Notice how long you’ve felt this fear. Notice how you react to it.

Then practice reacting to it in a new way. Try new actions. Try emotional regulation. Try telling yourself new thoughts, instead of just believing the old ones.

With practice, you’ll develop an entirely new way of being whenever fear arises. This is inner transformation, and it produces transformative results.