Tricking yourself into doing the work
Our reflection can’t do much unless we do. (Library of Congress photo)
It’s not a coincidence that I started blogging right when I started working with a business coach who told me to blog.
She told me to stop overthinking what I was going to write about and just start writing. Well...I sort of took a Forrest Gump approach to that and wrote more than was strictly necessary. But unlike Forrest, who just started running because he felt like it, I wrote because she told me to, and I trusted her.
Also, since I was paying this person, I wanted to make the most of her advice. There were so many things I could have done on my own — I already knew that I should be writing. But just as we go to college to pay to have someone tell us to read books that we could have gotten for free at a library, I wasn’t going to do it until I had some skin in the game.
Ironically, it’s the investment of time or money itself that can lead to results. If I purchase a course, I’m more likely to do the work associated with it, even if there’s nothing in the course itself that I would consider new information. If I want to feel an extra impetus to work out, I can spring for a monthly gym membership.
We can trick ourselves into doing the work and gain a touch of helpful accountability by making a commitment that we feel obliged to follow through on. This doesn’t always have to be financial — a relationship in which you don’t want to disappoint the other party can do it. So can time, when you have spent many hours developing a particular skill and feel the weight of that sunk cost motivating you to continue.
The benefit of this negotiation with ourselves doesn’t diminish even when we are consciously aware of it. It would be foolish to spend more than we have, but giving a bit more than we strictly need to can be the “toll” that we pay for the benefits we will gain. It’s a way of saying, “This matters to me, and paying for this with my time, money, and attention is a way of signaling that this will be my priority for the time being.”
Without these moves we make to demonstrate our intention, we’ll keep busy with a little of this and a little of that — not a bad way to live, but not an effective way to progress toward a specific outcome.
On the other hand, we can move toward a goal that requires a bit of a stretch by stretching past what’s comfortable right from the start. This can happen when we publicly announce what we intend to do. Social pressure is arguably even more powerful than money.
Pressure? Yes. We are adding stress to our lives with this undertaking, which is a choice to be made thoughtfully. However, if the upside outweighs the downside — in other words, if we’re after something we really want — the stress can be something we embrace willingly. As we repeat this pattern, we can actually get excited about this stress because of what it represents.
I’m preparing to go to a conference in October. The conference, which is related to entrepreneurship, will be a powerful learning and networking experience because of the combined energy and enthusiasm of everyone who is attending with the purpose of making it a powerful learning and networking experience for themselves. Could we achieve the same thing in a series of Zoom meetings, without the hassle and expense of international travel? I think not.
I hope that the clients who work with me get more out of the experience than some extra accountability, just as I seek practical support from the coaches and consultants that I work with. But putting a down payment on your future is valuable in itself.
