Over the years, I’ve broken many New Year’s Resolutions by mid-February. There are also many resolutions I've kept, and most of those have all had something in common - they weren’t centered on me, but instead were focused on others. Once I began to make some of my annual resolutions externally focused, I was able to create habits rather than just a temporary routine. ​

An example of an externally focused goal was the resolution to stop thinking so hard about if I should help someone. I decided that if the opportunity presented itself, and I had the ability or means to help someone, I would just do it instead of mulling it over and delaying a decision. Though this was initially focused on others, the benefit to me was great as well - I wasted less time overthinking and learned to confident in my decision making skills.

I’ve also made goals about investing in relationships, and though that benefits me as well, I’m more likely to keep up with it because I feel like I’m letting someone else down if I don’t follow through. Sometimes it’s easier to keep promises to others than it is yourself.

In Gretchen Rubin's book, The Four Tendencies, she explains that everyone responds to expectations differently. She identified four main personality types based on how they respond to inner and outer expectations. Upholders can easily meet outer and inner expectations; Obligers have trouble meeting inner expectations but thrive with outer expectation; Questioners need to ask questions to help make sense out of outer expectations, thus turning them into inner expectations; and Rebels don’t respond to inner or outer expectation - they kind of do what they want when they want. Take the quiz to see what your primary tendency is.

Even if your goal is 100% about you, outward expectations can still help you be successful if you find an accountability partner or join an accountability group. Research shows an increased chance for success when you announce your goal and report on progress regularly. It’s a little harder to let others down than it is to let yourself down - that’s unfortunate, but often true.

But what about a goal that is so private that you don’t want to share it with anyone? Try thinking about your “future self.” This allows you to look from the outside in and think of your future self as almost a different person. You can make a promise to her that you don’t want to break. I love the concept of the future self for goal setting but also for short term motivation. For example we all know it makes sense to prepare the night before to make your mornings go more smoothly, but yet many of us don’t do the prep work regularly. Try thinking about what you owe your future self and how she will feel when you make preparations that will benefit her. This can be for things as insignificant as peeling your orange at home instead of putting whole orange in your lunch bag. Think, “Future me will be so happy she doesn’t have to make a mess peeling this orange at her desk tomorrow when she’s hungry for a snack, and it will help her eat healthier too!”

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The future self concept gets really, really interesting even beyond the ways we can motivate ourselves in the short term. Harvard psychologist, Dan Gilbert, explains in his TED talk the difference between the ease of remembering and the difficulty of imagining. Most of us can remember who we were but it’s harder to imagine who we are going to be in the future. Gilbert says, “Then we mistakenly think that because it’s hard to imagine, it’s not likely to happen.” You’ve heard the phrase, ‘I can’t imagine that’ and usually this is because of the poor imagination of the person saying it, not the unlikelihood that it will actually happen. That excites me - my future truly can be beyond my imagination!

Whether you become accountable to your future self, to your best friend, or to a group of strangers, that accountability will help you create a long term promise that will form your behavior and decisions in the present and the future - and the beauty is the past doesn’t have to be a limiting factor.   Goals could be in the form of an educational or professional pursuit, a healthy lifestyle, learning a new skill or hobby, or even focusing on developing or improving a relationship. It might be time to rethink this year's resolutions and determine how to make them outwardly focused - even if that focus is yourself in the future! 

Sources

Photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash

Rubin, Gretchen. The Four Tendencies. Random House USA, 2018.

Wissman, Barrett. “An Accountability Partner Makes You Vastly More Likely to Succeed.” Entrepreneur, 20 Mar. 2018, www.entrepreneur.com/article/310062.

​Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

Gilbert, Dan. “The Psychology of Your Future Self.” TED, Mar. 2014, www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_psychology_of_your_future_self.

Today is My Life In Order's two year anniversary!  It's hard to believe that I've been writing for so long.  A year ago I published "One Year of My Life In Order" which was pretty exciting, but this year I've got something even bigger to celebrate! 

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on my 6 week sprint, and it's culminated in a product I'm very proud of — my e-book, Get Organized Head First!

The book is on sale now, and anyone who takes the time to read this full post will get to use this coupon code to get the book for just $4!  Use code: BLOG at checkout.

On a whim, back before I'd even had the courage to publish my first blog post, I applied to be part of a book launch team for a new productivity book from the founder of the task management software I use, Nozbe. I was thrilled when I was selected as one of approximately 100 people worldwide who would have the opportunity to review and offer suggestions for this book. At that time, I had no idea that I'd actually be quoted in the book! It's been over a year, but the book has been written, edited, and published! 10 Steps to Ultimate Productivity by Michael Sliwinski is now available for purchase!! I'll give you a summary of some of the great content from this book below. Make sure to read to the end for info on how to get entered for your chance to win a copy!

The first thing you need to know about this book is that its author definitely has the authority to be writing it!  I had the honor tointerview Michael Sliwinski last year and learned about why he's a true productivity expert.  Click here to read the post for more background on the man who created a productivity platform that nearly half a million people use daily!

Each chapter of the book is one of the 10 steps to ultimate productivity.  For each step, you will be taught why it is important, learn from some real life examples, receive tips about how to put the step into practice in your own life.  There are also bonus materials that you can access online to help with your own personal productivity system. 

The ten steps are:​

1. Clear Your Mind
2. ​From Tasks to Projects
3. Focus on What's Most Important
4. ​Be Productive Anytime and Anywhere
5. Delegate Tasks to Achieve More - Work in a Team
6. Group Your Tasks and Shift Gears
7. Take Control Over Your Documents
8. ​Check Your System Regularly
9. Master Your Emails
10. What Else Can You Improve?

I'm so excited for you to read this book that I'm going to give you the chance to get one for FREE!  There are two ways to enter (and you can do either or both for an additional entry!)  ​A winner will be drawn on Thursday, January 17, 2019.

• Visit My Life In Order on Facebook, like the page if you haven't already,  and follow the instructions on the pinned post! 
• Follow My Life In Order on Pinterest, and repin the pin about 10 Steps to Ultimate Productivity from the Productivity and Time Management Board!

This week I announced that I'm giving away a copy of the book, Get Momentum: How to Start When You're Stuck by Jason and Jodi Womack.   (If you're reading this before 9 p.m. on Wednesday, March  21, 2018 there's still time to enter to win!)  I highly recommend this book to help you get started on any project whether it be personal, work, or a passion project.  Get Momentum first helps you to figure out why you're stuck and then breaks down getting momentum into 5 steps:

The very first step kind of stopped me in my tracks: "What do I want to be known for?" Before I even read the chapter, I made a quick list (in no particular order of importance):​

After I made the list and really thought about my day-to-day life, I began to wonder how others really saw me.  Just because this is what I WANT to be known for doesn't mean that this is how the world is seeing me - I have to take action to make sure these qualities are visible.  There's no doubt I want these things to be true about me, but what am I DOING to make them true, and what should I avoid to negate these statements?  I can be kind most of the time, but if I'm unkind some of the time, will that cancel out a perception of my kindness? or will the world take the time to weigh my kindness against my unkindness and award me with being "known for" the one that I've done the most?  Without putting pressure on myself to be perfect, how can I Iive to create the kind of legacy I want to leave?  

This is heavy stuff!  Thankfully, there were more exercises in the book to help me work through all of this.  One of the activities that helped me the most was figuring out how I spent my time.  As I've mentioned before, time is one of my weaknesses, so I needed to figure out if I was proving what I wanted to be known for by how I was spending my time.

• Was I being present with my kids? 
• How much time was I working on staying "on top of things" at home and at work? 
• How often was I actually helping someone else achieve a goal? 

I've tried various methods of tracking my time in the past, from pen and paper to an elaborate spreadsheet I created, but I decided to try something new this time and downloaded the Toggl app at the recommendation of some of my productive friends.  This let me track my time in real time with a stopwatch-type feature or record my time later if I forgot to start the clock.  After a week or so, I could look at a high level pie chart to see how I was spending my time.  I could easily see that I was working way more than I was spending time with my kids and family (even when I kind of cheated and counted driving to the grocery store with the kids in the back seat as "family time!")

The real difference maker was when I answered the next couple of questions in the exercise.  The first was: "What do I wish were different?"  You may have heard the saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."  Insane may be a bit of an overstatement, but if I want things to be different, I'm going to have to change.  I think we could all make a long list of what we'd like to be different in our lives, but what are we doing to make that happen?  If you're like me, I've gotten to this point before - I know what I want things to be like and then make a giant plan of all the things I'm going to change to make it happen.  And then I fail because that amount of change all at once is overwhelming. 

That's why the second question this section asked was really valuable to me:  "Do I really need to make changes now?  Should and can I wait?"  Yes, I definitely need to make some changes, but which of them are critical or should be done first?  It takes time to form new habits - longer than you'd think.  Gretchen Rubin, author of many books including Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives, wrote about this in her blog post, "Stop Expecting to Change Your Habit in 21 Days."  Give yourself time and space to make a change and really master it before adding more change.  ​

I chose one change to start with - during the school week, I will try not to work on my day job or on my passion project (this blog!) from the time I get home until the kids go to bed unless they are involved in some way that they enjoy.  This should include checking email on my phone... I'm doing better, but I'm still not perfect.  If I can involve the kids and they enjoy it, then that's a win-win.  For example my oldest son has been helping me with live Facebook videos - that's fun for both of us.  By making that one change,  I'm working toward one of the things I want to be known for - being present and involved with my kids and family because we are using that time to play family games, read together, or just talk.

I will add some more changes soon - once the family time on weeknights is a real habit.  In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my short list of what I want to be known for front of mind as I make decisions or even speak - is what I'm about to do or say going to cause others to "know me" for being kind or helping them achieve their goals; is how I'm choosing to spend my time helping me stay on top of my responsibilities?  If the answer is no, I need to rethink my actions!

How about you - have you thought about what you want to be known for and what that really means in your daily life?  I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments.  If Get Momentum sounds like a book you'd like to read, you can earn entries for the giveaway by visiting the Facebook page and/or simply like and comment on this post below before Wednesday, March 21, 2018 at 9 p.m.  to get an entry!  

​Sources

Womack, Jason W., and Jodi Womack. Get Momentum: How to Start When You're Stuck. Wiley, 2016.
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Rubin, Gretchen. “Stop Expecting to Change Your Habit in 21 Days.” Gretchen Rubin, 16 Oct. 2009, Stop Expecting to Change Your Habit in 21 Days.

Photo by Niklas Rhöse on Unsplash
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