4 Steps That Can Help Us Commit to Doing ‘Great Work’
I want to revamp my website, change its look and feel, and offer new products like a course and a podcast within the next six to nine months.
As I started to research and study the best tools available to create a course, I found endless choices.
Immediately, the post I wrote last week about the fears holding us back to commit quickly came back to haunt me. I felt paralyzed as there were so many things to know about and so much to do. It wasn’t as simple as I thought. I was utterly overwhelmed.
At least, this time around, I knew the fears that were holding me back. Since I wanted to be proud of whatever I ended up offering, I knew that I’d have to put in a lot of hard work and that I’d be taking a lot of time from my calendar.
I needed a how-to plan and a way to embark on doing the work. I thought long and hard about this and went back to how I had committed to other goals in my life.
The four elements listed below are the same ones that I’ve always used to commit when I seem either overwhelmed or too afraid to take the next step.
Be clear on the work you want to commit to
Using the famous SMART goals system, you need to make sure to be clear on what you want to manifest. That is, make the goal specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bounded.
I was clear on what I wanted to achieve. I want my website redesigned and ready by the 1st of July. I also want to make one course available by the 1st of October. Finally, my podcast should launch by the 1st of January 2022.
Take small incremental steps
As Lao Tzu said so many years ago, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Chunk up the big objective into smaller monthly goals, then again into weekly and daily tasks. This makes it easier to take small incremental steps daily that seem doable and, most importantly, you won’t get overwhelmed.
In my example of creating the online course by the 1st of October, it would be chunked into four stages: Marketing, Creation, Uploading with all the technical issues and, nally, Launching. Though they are sequential, the marketing needs to be ever-present.
Each stage then breaks down into weekly and daily goals, which means spending an hour a day on one task will seem reasonable. (In breaking it down for myself here, I already feel more confident about doing the work.)
Design an environment for success
Put up posters, pictures of the work that you are committing to and the result you want to achieve. Read articles or books and talk to everyone about them too. This association with the ‘work’ will reinforce it into the synapses of our brain.
I’ve started listening to podcasts like ‘Smart Passive Income’ by Pat Flynn on how to create content. I also attended several webinars on how to create an online course. These have kept me both motivated, focused and well-informed on what I want to do.
It’s as if there are friends and experts out there egging me on to keep doing the work.
Accountability
The most crucial step is to be accountable. To feel that you can’t let people down. We are social beings and motivated by not letting ‘our people’ down. Sometimes some external pressure can help us keep in check and not let ourselves down.
Discipline and self-motivation work, but they are exhaustible, and we always nd ourselves needing a little help from our peers. That’s why accountability works.
We all know that we are more likely to go to the gym if a coach or a gym mate is waiting for us. Or we more often than not complete a book if we belong to a book club.
One way to be accountable is to have someone like a coach, partner or friend check in with you.
I’ve got a personal coach who keeps me in line with assessing my performance for the week and brainstorming with me on new ideas.
Another way of accountability is to declare your intentions publicly. As I’ve done above and as I’ll repeat below:
By the 1st of July, I will have a newly revamped website.
By the 1st of October, I will start an online course based on my book ‘The Shift’.
By the 1st of January 2021, I will launch a Podcast.
These days, things are not as clear-cut as back when our only option was to either fight or flee when facing a Saber-toothed tiger out in the wild.
Doing ‘Great Work’ is not easy, especially if you want to be proud of it. As we’ve become more comfortable, civilized and befuddled by choices, commitment has become hard.
Today, we need to develop a craftsman mindset, that is, to put in place a system whereby long-term progress is achievable and measurable in doing something small every day towards that activity.
What are you waiting for? Start to commit to those baby steps that will take you to your promised land.