Ah, one of the joys of the new year is that everyone makes commitments that they're going to keep this year. It doesn't matter that they failed last year or the year before at the exact same thing going about it the exact same way… this year they're going to do it.
Well, this year in addition to the goals for CaseySoftware, I've set a trio of major goals for myself… one professional and the other two personal. Each one is a daily task that I've already been doing for a while. About a year ago, I adopted a simple practice of marking my calendar when the task got done.
I didn't really think of the implications of it until the New Year started this week… and read Quadzilla's post on How to Keep Your New Years Resolutions & Achieve all Your Goals:
You see, it’s easy to do things one day at a time or one moment at a time. That’s the secret of maintained willpower. As long as you don’t break the chain today, you’ll be fine (because tomorrow you can tell yourself the same thing).Don’t break the chain.
I hadn't considered the power of that. I know all about peer pressure and apply it regularly. The simple concept of keeping your team members' todo lists public can do that. If one person is clearing their list, the rest of the team will feel the pressure… and will often try harder. But I'd never considered self-pressure. And at every layer, it makes sense.
One of my chains is blogging every weekday. This is why despite the fact that I'm in the thick of preparing WhyGoSolo for the launch tomorrow and it's 8pm on a Friday night, I'm writing this post on what is motivating me. And what may motivate you.
What little daily tasks do you have? How can you put a positive pressure on yourself to keep moving, to keep doing it, and to be accountable to yourself? Or I guess the real question is… how serious are you this time around?
So far it's the 4th and all three of my three chains are unbroken. 😉