~Terri Guillemets
I had a lightning bolt moment the other day that I want to share with you. It revolves around why we have difficulty getting to some tasks in our day-to-day, and not others. Forget house cleaning, laundry, and yard work. I’m talking about the necessary tasks in our lives connected to health, career, and personal growth. Tasks that if we chose to engage in them more regularly would bring us higher levels of success personally and professionally.
I admit to being a fair weather writer. It’s one of those tasks I want to be better at, that I actually enjoy once I get to it, but it always seems to end up on the bottom of my ‘to-do’ list. Heck, sometimes it doesn’t even make the list. I want to write a book. In fact I’ve been talking about it for years, but I’ve discovered that talking produces minimal results and I’m getting tired of listening to my own excuses as to why I’m not getting to it. Yes it’s true; writing doesn’t come naturally to me. I work hard every time I sit down to create. It could be why I don’t leap at the chance as much as I could. Even still, I’m dedicated to getting better at it. And just like the golf swing I’m committed to finding amidst the hooks, slices, and straight-out botched shots, if I want to improve my writing it will require practice. Lots of it.
In order to find a way to habituate my writing practice I thought about the things in my life that come easily to me. Maybe I could apply some of that success logic to my suffering script? Exercise immediately came to mind. Through more than 20 years of immersion in health and fitness, teaching and training others, and practicing what I preach, exercise is just something that I fit in no matter what. But it hasn’t always been this way. BINGO! When I thought back to when I was first habituating exercise in my life I was reminded that in the beginning it was all about structure, scheduling in my activity sessions and creating an accountability system that would add to my success. Structure, scheduling, accountability – why should my writing experience be afforded any less?
Here’s the sad irony of my awareness. I speak regularly to audiences about habituating health practices through small steps and every-day accountability. It makes perfect sense to me why people aren’t fitting in fitness and if they’d simply change their approach then success would be forthcoming. When they do, it does. Okay, why then would I not apply my own logic to the things in my life that I need to habituate? DUH!? I guess when the student is ready the teacher appears, and in this case we’re both slow learners.
My Summer Accountability Experiment
This summer I’m going to switch things up a bit with my weekly ‘Get to It Guideline’. I’m still going to find and send a quote and my thoughts to my regular mailing list, but then I’m going to link to this blog and invite you to read more here. Each week I’ll be working on parts of my book, and I’ll be posting what I write. This will be as hard for me as exercise or eating right can be for others and I need your help to hold me accountable to this summer writing experiment. I’ll invite your thoughts and comments, ask questions I want answers to, and even ask you to try new things and step to higher levels of accountability with the things in your life you’ve been putting off. Structure, scheduling, accountability … I think it will help.
Whatever it Takes
At the end of every blog post I will issue a task or challenge for you to take action on – to do whatever it takes to get to it. If there are parts of your life you want to improve then why not do whatever it takes to make it happen?
This week I want you to ask yourself “What have I been putting off that I really want to start doing more regularly?” Make a list and then decide on one or two key items you can start on now.
On July 7th I’ll provide you with information and opportunities that will help you take action on those things in a bigger way, so stay tuned and get ready for your best summer yet.
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