When you want something done, and it is very difficult or seems impossible, here are five approaches that can help. They work for physical activity but also for improving interpersonal skills and many other types of objectives.

1. Dream about it. Envision the end in your mind, awake or asleep. Feel yourself mentally going through the steps to get there. “Sleep on it” actually does help you learn, by letting your brain play with this envisioning the end state while disabling interfering thoughts or inhibitions.
2. Spend the time. Many hard things require training. That means spending time on objective, or a component of the objective at a scheduled or determined pace — every day or three times a week. Anything less that that and a build in skill level becomes unlikely.
3. Do it in slow motion and then speed it up. Find a way to act out the hard objective in slow motion. Only after it is fluid in slow motion see how fast you can make it to perfect form and lose unnecessary motion.
4. Listen. Feedback can come from experts, those around you, or a camera recording what you have done that you can compare to the objective.
5. Perform first in a low risk environment. If you are an acrobat, do your first act with a net. If you are learning Greek, learn in a low pressure conversation, not an emergency.

None of these steps will get you doing something difficult without one other thing. The most important thing is to choose a challenging objective. We don’t just show up speaking a new language — we have to choose to learn it first. Choose something worth doing!

Originally published on Medium in We are all Overcomers.

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