Celebrate

Another handy tip from BJ Fogg and his book Tiny Habits: to recognize your successes.

One of the best ways to build and encode them is to celebrate each win, whether they are large or small:

When you celebrate effectively, you tap into the reward circuitry of your brain. By feeling good at the right moment, you cause your brain to recognize and encode the sequence of behaviors you just performed.

If you are starting out—or a seasoned professional struggling to stay motivated—take a moment to celebrate whatever achievement you make in the day.

One thing I found key in this process is to set small, simple goals. Yes, you may want to write for 3 hours and get several thousand words, but consider having a baseline, the bare minimum you know you can do. That might be 5 minutes of writing or 500 words. But this is your lowest commitment to the task. You can do more, but you must be confident that your choice is possible. (If this is still too much, scale back. The goal is to be able to do the work.)

Once you have your baseline, do it regularly—and when you finish, celebrate. Tell yourself, “Good job,” dance, or pump your fist in the air. It can be whatever you come up with—Fogg has over one hundred ways in his book—but do it!

It may feel awkward or uncomfortable but do it. I never allow myself to celebrate success, but recently I’ve started to pat myself on the back with a “Good job, David” thrown in for added measure, and it kinda feels good.

Start trying it, and read BJ Fogg’s book Tiny Habits. I highly recommend it.