This year, I am committed to doing a different challenge each month to improve in different areas of my life. In the past years, I've been guilty of trying to do too much "I want to do this each day; and this; and that" ... over time, burnout is inevitable and slipping up on a day/ few days makes it feel like I've lost momentum and it's a herculean effort to get back to "routine". Over the last year there were a few books that fundamentally changed how I approached this - more on this in my next post.
These books all pointed to the same thing :
Set up an overall goal to inform your strategy & direction for where you want to go , implement systems (Atomic habits by James Clear) and make it effortless to do this by thinking about simplest action ; resist the urge to perfect (Effortless by Greg McKeown) and most importantly try to do this one at a time to limit overwhelm and make it easy to make time to what you want to do (Make Time by Jake Knapp)
Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite reads last year MAKE TIME by Jake Knapp.
If you want to make time for things that matter, the Busy Bandwagon—our modern culture of constant busyness—will tell you the answer is to do more. Get more done. Be more efficient. Set more goals and make more plans. It’s the only way to fit those important moments into your life.We disagree. Doing more doesn’t help you create time for what matters; it just makes you feel even more frazzled and busy. And when you’re busy day after day, time slides by in a blur. We believe focusing on activities that fall between long-term goals and short-term tasks is the key to slowing down, bringing satisfaction to your daily life, and helping you make time. Long-term goals are useful for orienting you in the right direction but make it hard to enjoy the time spent working along the way. And tasks are necessary to get things done, but without a focal point, they fly by in a forgettable haze.Plenty of self-help gurus have offered suggestions for setting goals, and plenty of productivity experts have created systems for getting things done. But the space between has been neglected. We call the missing piece a Highlight.
FEBRUARY 2022 CHALLENGE
Given above, my goal each month is to focus on ONE thing - my monthly highlight if you will. For the month of February - it is to WRITE A BLOG POST DAILY. Here's what am hoping I will get out of this challenge :
OUTCOME #1: Get Consistent with creating content
Am so excited for this blog to be my creative outlet where I get share things that excite me and what am doing and hopefully reach out and build a community of folks who are interested in the same things. However, it has been 20 days since I logged into WIX last and I see I have 15 draft posts but only 3 published :) -- it's time to do something to get consistent with creating content. Yes, my content may not be perfect but I would rather get into the rhythm of it by having 30 not-so-great posts rather than polishing up a perfect post or publishing too little
OUTCOME #2: Learn by doing
What is my workflow (where I get my pictures from , how I generate content ideas , do I write better in the AM/PM ) - I want to learn by doing.
In Atomic Habits - James Clear shares an example that really resonated with me. A Professor in Florida ,Jerry Uelsmann , divided his filmography class into 2 parts. One half was supposed to focus on quality of photo while the other just had to generate as much quantity of photos as possible. At the end of the semester , he provided an assignment to click a single picture that best represented their style. The cohort that focused on quantity surprisingly had the better pictures. Why? Because repetition cemented their learning, they learnt more by doing and got better in their art.
So learning by doing - yes please!
Note: You can read more about the power of repetitions here https://jamesclear.com/repetitions .
OUTCOME #3: Tell better stories
Every heard of the proverb "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."
Stories to me are the equivalent of 'teaching a man to fish' in a conversation. "Tell a person a fact, and you make a point that resonates (hopefully ) for a small amount of time. Reinforce the fact with a story, and you create a memorable anecdote that is instantly shareable and leaves a lasting impact" :D
Telling a story takes a lot of skill and finesse and you only get it by honing this over time. Am hoping this daily habit will help me up my game here :)
Summary
So that's my challenge summary, folks :) If you want to do this with me as a content creator - share your blog/youtube/tiktok/twitter /<insert platform here> with me and I'll engage with you there. See you at the end of february for a recap on how things went!