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There comes a time when working towards a goal when no one else can do anything else to help you. The bribes, the rewards, the threats, the accountability: It means nothing. The only thing that matters is looking yourself in the mirror and getting deep-gut honest. If you find yourself continuing to procrastinate…
Sometimes, pushing harder just doesn’t work. You can threaten yourself, punish yourself, browbeat yourself, and feel bad all you want, but it just doesn’t make a difference. So what do you do? You take a break. Take an hour, afternoon, or even a whole day off. Do anything BUT what you’re supposed…
Not ready for the scorn and ridicule you might face, were you to make your goals public and then fail to achieve them? Then maybe what you need is a partner rather than a whole community of people monitoring your progress. There are a few types of partners, so let’s review the different…
In the olden days, lawbreakers were put in the stocks in the public square so everyone in the village could walk by and take part in their humiliation. Nowadays, we practice a similar punishment when we publish the names of prostitution solicitors and drunk drivers in the newspaper: We know that humiliation can…
Earlier in a blog post, I asked you to take a look at your goals to see if they were big enough or too big, if they were yours or someone else’s, and if they were really your burning desires. All those are important, but even more important is your “Why” behind your…
In the immortal words of Mary Poppins, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Sugar – or its psychic equivalent – doesn’t just work for medicine; it can help improve the “taste” of any nasty, scary, or unappealing task. Why do you think there are so many TV sets in gyms? No…
We’re an impatient society. We want it all, and we want it now. After all, this is the era of “It’s there in 30 minutes or it’s free!” and next-day Amazon deliveries. Why should we wait and take our goals a step at a time? Because that’s really the only way to achieve them. In…
Most of us spend our lives in avoidance of pain. It’s not surprising; researchers have shown that the drive to escape pain is greater than the drive to experience pleasure. All things being equal, if we’re not hurting bad enough, we’re not going to be very motivated to seek out change. The good news is…
You know you want to declutter your house, find a new job, or lose weight. But somehow, you’re not getting around to it. The first place to start is with your goal. Sometimes procrastination occurs because your goal simply isn’t clear enough. To have an effective, motivating goal, you need to know precisely what…
We are trained early on to think that lists must be linear – one item after another, with cute little check boxes next to each. But what if your brain isn't the linear type? Many people, especially creatives, have trouble thinking in a linear fashion. Forcing themselves to create To-Do lists in a traditional manner…