Go it Alone or With a Buddy

The following is the second in a series of short articles offered to help us during this holiday season.

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Our lives are full of both external obligations (those things that others expect of us, such as work deadlines, getting dinner on the table for our family, etc.) and internal obligations (those things we expect of ourselves, such as keeping our closet tidy, avoiding too many sweets, or wanting to get to the gym more).

As individuals, we may differ in how we respond to internal vs. external obligations. Some of us respond equally well to both external and internal obligations, while others rebel against the idea of obligations of any sort. (For more on this concept, check out Gretchen Rubin’s work. She even has a helpful quiz to take to better understand how you are uniquely motivated.)

For those who are especially motivated by external obligations, and do best when someone is counting on you or expecting something of you, here is a fun idea for working this to your advantage while trying to stay on track during the holiday season. We can easily convert an internal obligation (i.e., I am NOT going to put on 5 pounds in the next three weeks!) to an external one by creating external accountability. Find a friend or colleague who is supportive of your goal, or better yet, shares a similar one, and outline a very specific plan for what your goal is and when and how you will check in with each other to report how it is going.  Consider setting some sort of reward for meeting a specific goal at the end of a predetermined amount of time…make it fun!

A major key to success is to communicate very specific, measurable intentions to your friend, so that it is very clear to both of you whether you are meeting them!  For example:

• I commit to exercising at least 30 minutes three times each week.
• At each holiday gathering, I commit to enjoying just one small sweet treat or high calorie drink.
• I commit to packing a healthy lunch to work each day this month to balance out the more extravagant meals we may be enjoying.
• I will park my car at the far end of a parking lot at least once every day to build in some easy extra steps.
• I will practice 5 minutes of mindfulness meditation, prayer, or deep breathing each morning so that I can better handle the extra stress and busyness of this season.

Give your friend tips too about how you feel most accountable to others and what is most motivating to you. For some, lots of encouragement and celebration of success is helpful; others might want a stern ‘scolding’ or consequence of sorts when starting to fall short of stated goals…make sure your buddy knows this and give them permission to deal out the tough love, if that’s what you need!

Let’s keep in mind our desired outcome, build a supportive team around us, and we can do this – and we have the momentum we’ve already built come January!