This article is part of a series of articles which the goals are to help you be more successful in your personal challenges. These tips come from my personal experience as well as from the feedback from participants of Challengers (30 day challenges).
Challenges stated in this article can be of many sorts, but in any case are targeting long lasting challenges (i.e. habit creation or new skill learning) which require daily action or near daily action.
Tip 6: Tell your challenge to your friends
This may be a double edged sword if you don’t do this properly. So let’s start by explaining by what I mean by properly.
The tip is to share your challenge with your friends, family, and any one you feel comfortable sharing with that you are sure you will see again during your challenge. Do not share with random people who you will not meet again. The idea behind is that by sharing with people close to you, you will force yourself to keep going so you don’t have to tell your friend you haven’t followed will your challenge. You know you will see your friend again, and you know he/she will ask about your progress. Call it an unofficial accountability partner if you want.
You do not want to share with random people. Studies have showed that people who share their challenge with others have the feeling of accomplishment even without doing their challenge, and thus tend to do less of their challenge because they feel they have already done it. So sharing with random people will put you more vulnerable to the false impression of accomplishment.
When you do share with your friends, make sure you don’t take any pride in sharing your sharing your challenge. Especially, if they congratulate you in starting such a difficult challenge, tell them not to congratulate you now, and that you haven’t don’t anything yet and that he/she can congratulate you at the end of the challenge, once you actually have succeeded. Insist on not taking any pride or congratulations until you are truly successful in your challenge.
Next tip: Better do the minimum than to do nothing.
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