Keep failing at your resoltions? Here are 5 ways to start winning!
I like the t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶o̶u̶s useful reminder I get each time the calendar year has progressed another 1% courtesy of the twitter account @year_progress. If you haven’t done so already, I’d suggest following it and enabling notification alerts each time that account tweets. It’s a (sometimes) stark reminder of where I am in the year and how much or little there is left of it.
At this point in time, 8% of the year has already come and gone and whilst I’m not in the habit of setting myself year-long resolutions, I feel the need to assess my progress of the vague targets I have in my mind. In doing this I realise, shit I really haven’t done much at all. It’s a familiar feeling and one that I know how to avoid, but I fall afoul of not practicing what I preach. So here I am, typing up what I think will help me and hopefully someone else that reads this.
Keep the important things visible
On a daily basis I practice kanban at work. A japanese system that literally translates to ‘visual sign’. The origins of it can be found here but in short it’s a way help you visualize your work, maximize efficiency, and improve continuously. By keeping all the work my team is doing and needs to do visual and updated regularly, we are able to track progress and ensure that we don’t forget anything that needs to be done.
So if I do this at work, why don’t I translate that to my home life too? That book I’ve been meaning to read for months, take it off the bookshelf and keep it on my bedside table. Those multivitamins I really want to take more regularly, take them out of the medicine cupboard and keep them near the kitchen table (out of the reach of children of course!). Even my list of vague things I want to accomplish this year. I pledge to write them out and stick them on the wall in my home office so that they stare me in the face every day and act as a reminder for me to accomplish them.
Embrace your procrastination
My brain is very good at blocking out things that it doesn’t want to do which leads to me procrastinate. I realise I’m doing it and then kick myself for doing it. But when looking at ways of curbing it I found that procrastination turns out not to be a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.
So my way of combating this sub-concious mental blockade is to bring it front and centre of my concious mind. I am going to separate my self-worth from my goals. Regardless of how well or badly I do at achieving my goals, I am no less worthy of my existence. I am who I am and will achieve what I am able to.
Filter out the noise of others
It’s easy to constantly compare myself to others. With the advent of hypersharing through social media platforms, I’m constantly inundated with updates about other people’s achievements and progress in life. Now, I’m not meaning to take anything away from people who do this or judge them at all (I’m sure I’m guilt of doing this too), but a lot of the time, this ends up demoralising me.
Other than the people that I find inspirational and from whom I get a morale boost from when I hear about their achievements, I’m going to take active steps to filter the unwanted noise. I’m going to try and control what I see, hear and absorb such that it benefits my mental wellbeing and encourages me rather than discourage.
Outcomes over outputs
Speaking of people that inspire me, Josh Seiden is one of those. He’s recently written about why Outcomes are a much better way to assess progress instead of looking at Outputs. Yes, the book is focused on software systems, but there’s no reason not to apply the same logic to personal progress.
I’ve fallen into the habit of setting myself targets that sound something like:
- Write X number of articles per year
- Exercise X number of times a week
- Read X number of books per month
Whilst these are useful in some circumstances, I find that asking the question about why I want to do these things is much more important. When doing that, the above list transforms into:
- Improve my writing ability and outreach
- Feel healthier and more energetic
- Learn new things and set aside time to focus on a specific topic
The second list, whilst less descriptive, is a lot more approachable and prescriptive. It gives me the freedom to explore different ways to achieve those goals. More importantly, it makes me feel less bad and pressured if I’m not exactly at the right ‘amount of progress’ that I should be at.
Find ways to make time
I came across this book called Make Time. It’s an easy read (or listen, if you’re into audiobooks) that gives practical advice on how to make time for the things that are important to you that you just don’t find the time for (ironic eh?).
Written and read by the awesome Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky, it’s a book that I’ve repeatedly referred back to for inspiration why I find that I’m just not finding the time!
I can’t state how important it is to give yourself the time and space to do the things you want to do and need to do. Life comes at you fast and in a blink, it’s over. Take a little bit of time today (probably as much time as you’ve taken to read this piece) and set aside some time for something that you haven’t had the time to do in a while. Be it reading a book, playing a video game, exercise or even just speaking to a real human being or looking at something that’s further away from you than your screen (guilty, as charged), make the time do that. You’ll feel better. I promise!
These are some of the ways I’m going to try and help myself achieve my goals. I hope they help you too.
