How Seinfeld Can Help You Reach Your Goal

We all have those days when you just don’t wanna… eat right. Run. Work on your business, art project, etc. Whatever it is, how will you hold yourself accountable on those days when you’d just… rather not?

Here are three of my favorite examples of staying on track:

1. Jerry Seinfeld once said that he’d committed to writing one joke a day. And each day he wrote one, he put a big red X on his calendar. By the time he had a few X’s in a row, he realized he didn’t want to see the chain broken – so he’d write a joke, even on a day he didn’t feel inspired.

2. I’d decided to start getting up earlier, to get things done before taking my kids to school. (5:15am….yikes.) Needless to say, my snooze button got a lot of use for a couple weeks. So I made the goal easier– when the alarm went off, instead of thinking, ‘I have to get up and start the day now,’ I thought, ‘I will go out to the couch.’ And I did- everyday, I went out to the couch at 5:15. On some days, I went right back to sleep in the living room. But some days I got up and got going– and you know what? It got easier. I trained my body to get up and get moving – making the goal more attainable helped.

3. A friend of mine told me she’s committed to going to the gym 5 days a week. On days she doesn’t feel like going, she tells herself, ‘I’ll just go for 15 minutes. If I want to leave then, I can.’ And sometimes, she does leave after 15 minutes. And sometimes she wants to stay longer, so she does. Either way, she has stuck to her five-a-week regimen.

How do you stay on track when you don’t feel like it?