Create lasting habits: Get out of isolation and join forces with your friends
How can we take back control of part of our day? If we can do this effectively, and translate that non-productive time spent into habits that yield more happiness, accomplishment etc, it’s a win-win situation. You may not even know it’s non-productive time spent at face value, because you’re so used to your routine that you don’t know any differently!
I caught myself in this situation a couple of months ago, where I knew I was busy but I wasn’t spending the time towards what I actually wanted to accomplish. Then it felt like there wasn’t enough time to get done everything I wanted. And when I had a random conversation with a friend about this topic, he related right away. Let me explain…
I was with a friend in January recounting what we accomplished last year. My friend, Steve, is self-employed and runs a start-up out of Denver. He was happy with his overall progress professionally and personally, but over the last couple of months has been less productive. I felt similar — there were times when I was very productive with my business, but other times I felt I was in a hamster wheel not really finishing anything. Don’t get me wrong, I was very busy, just like my argument in the paragraph above, but I wasn’t accomplishing anything meaningful (which is how I try to measure myself).
I cannot imagine that Steve and I are the only ones in this situation. I consider the two of us as being self-motivated, driven people. We are both either pursuing or have been leading start-up ventures which, if you’re doing it for the right reasons, is one of the only professions where you’re working toward a vision and mission that you’re 100% passionate about — because you created the vision and mission from scratch. It certainly wasn’t for a lack of passion that we weren’t as productive, or happy, as we wanted to be…
The thought struck us nearly simultaneously. We were both going about our careers in some form of physical and social isolation, without any positive influence passing between us.
Steve and I played basketball together at Case Western Reserve, a D3 school in Cleveland, OH. During those days we were constantly encouraging each other overtly and subconsciously, simply being in the same gymnasium, at the same time, striving to accomplish a common goal. We had collective successes and failures, but always stayed committed to the goal and enjoyed the journey along the way. I can say this for all of my teammates at Case Western.
I’ve realized that this type of connection with my friends has been more or less missing since I left college almost 7 years ago. TO BE CLEAR, I have had very deep conversations with many friends, and have kept in extremely close contact with then over the years. But it’s not a connection like the college basketball days. And I’m not talking about the connection of physically being present and trying to “win the game” — those days, unfortunately, are past. Now I crave a virtual connection with these same friends — what are they trying to accomplish this month at a personal level? What are they trying to get better at with work, to extent they’re willing to share? Their goals may be different than mine, but the fact that we’re each journeying to our goals, with a sense of togetherness, may scratch some of the itch that won’t go away.
Steve and I tried to simulate this type of connection, simply using a shared google doc to write down fitness goals, work goals, and hobby goals that we commit to achieving by the end of each month. We can see each others goals. At the end of each month, we meet to talk about what was accomplished for each goal.
In the last month, I was able to work towards these goals knowing he would hold me accountable on the back end of each month, to what I wrote in the shared doc. This was great, because I didn’t have to bore him with the gory details of my work that had almost no relevance to him. But he knew just enough about what I wanted to accomplish end of month, that I felt I couldn’t let him down. This process me extra accountable for the following reasons…
First, I don’t want to show up for the monthly meeting with a half-empty spreadsheet and disappoint my friend Steve. That would be like me taking basketball practice easy one day, which would make him as the team captain look like a poor leader. I just earned myself a spot on the end of the bench, and perhaps Steve as well…
Second, I can enjoy sharing my learnings or results with someone else! This has been a KEY observation I’ve made when you accomplish something in physical or social isolation. We all tend to be very overcritical of ourselves, often overlooking the number of accomplishments or, even at times, how cool some of our accomplishments are! Sharing the accomplishments with Steve allowed me to stand behind them and be proud, even if they were small such as learning the science of beer and how they’re brewed (yes, this was one of my fun ‘hobby goals’ that I’m now significantly more knowledgeable about). I felt proud to know what goes into this delicious beverage I love drinking with others!
We even started texting each other organically during the month — “Ran a 5:50 mile, 20 more seconds to shave for my goal,” or “Just made a Kimchi burger, it was delicious.” These texts got me thinking, “I should goto the gym and workout” to accomplish my push-up goal by month end, or “Great for Steve, curious to try that burger, but I need to research the science of beer and how it’s brewed so I can share some good news with him later this month.”
This last month was a really fun and productive exercise — it allowed me to take some control back this month. I say some, because I don’t want to prescribe what to do with ALL of my time. I want time for spontaneity, and need time for personal obligations I owe to myself or my family. The intention here is to take a portion of your time and use it to accomplish a mini goal you’re passionate about (for my close friend whose wife just had a baby, this may be just a few minutes a day and that’s OK!).
Designing my goals was fun, but this is not the most important thing. Many people set goals, an important practice all of us should continually be doing, be it related to work, home, or social. But how many feel they are sticking to it week to week, month to month? This is the key!
As I said above during my time at Case Western with my basketball teammates… “We had collective successes and failures, but always stayed committed to the goal and enjoyed the journey along the way.”
Enjoy the journey along the way by developing a craving to achieve success alongside others. I’ve started to use the same principles from when I was a little kid through college: A craving for having fun, working, and accomplishing alongside friends.
Let’s use the power of the internet and mobile connectedness to develop and utilize communication in powerful, impactful ways like this.
