3 Ways to Stay Committed to Your Goals
Photo by chrisada
All promise outruns performance. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
We all know instinctively that small efforts, accumulated long enough, will produce great results.
Yet, one of the hardest things to do is to stay committed to a plan for a long period of time – be it going to the gym, sticking to a diet, spending quality time with family, quitting smoking, or separating your garbage.
Taken individually, each of these activities are a cinch. What seem to be missing is our daily resolve to go about doing them. The ‘pigs’ in our minds are consistently outsmarting our better judgement and winning the war.
In this post, I will list 3 online tools that I’ve used to turn the tables against this ‘pig’.
This is not to say that I am using all of the following tools at the same time, instead, I change my bases every so often whenever a tool runs out of its effectiveness. It’s important to know that your ‘pig’ is at least as smart as you and will try its best to beat your tools.
1. 43things.com
43things is a social network of almost 1.5 million users each declaring a list of things they want to do. Here, you will rarely be the first person to declare something new, so if you want to “workout regularly”, you’d be happy to find 345 other users who are also doing that.
You can also write short entries for each of your goals – I used to write my gym workout achievements which I found very motivational. If there are other people sharing the same goal, you can also see their entries and comment on them. The virtual group of like-minded people will add tremendously to your success.
Another feature I liked about 43things is ‘cheers’. You can cheer other people’s goals and you will get them too. Getting a cheer on a goal from a stranger gives me a strong boost.
2. Stickk.com
Stickk takes a harsher stance on commitment – it makes you put a contract on your word, enroll supporters (usually your friends) to encourage you along the way, and appoint referees (your girlfriend or your mom?) to verify your activities.
Stickk also requires you to file a weekly report and will hunt you down via email if you don’t. I highly recommend this to those of you who excel under authoritative environments.
3. JoesGoals.com
Joe’s Goals is a deceptively simple application that let’s you list your goals across 7 days. Each goal occupies a square. When you get something done, click on the square to get a check icon.
For every check, you get 1 point for the given day. For every goal, Joe’s Goals calculates the length of the chain which is the unbroken sequence of checks for the goal. This plays on our automatic desire to keep the chain growing.