When we’re trying to achieve a key objective, we may need to employ a behavioral routine. There’s a problem with routines. Sometimes these become boring. What’s the secret to sticking to a required routine? Make it spicy!

Let’s look at two examples.

First, imagine you’ve decided to include one health-focused drink daily as part of a larger goal. Maybe this supplies a post-workout boost. Or, perhaps it’s a meal replacement. Regardless, even if it’s chocolate flavor, drinking the beverage could become tiresome. So, how do you spice it up? Add cinnamon or cayenne (or both!). Add frozen berries. Add nuts. Include some variety to prevent your new action from becoming ho-hum. If you don’t have something to look forward to, a routine will not stick.

Yesterday’s post featured “NaNoWriMo” as an example of a big goal for year-end impact. Participants commit to writing 50,000 words to create a novel during the month of November. Aspiring novelists need to write at an average pace of 1,667 words per day to meet this goal.

What seems awesome and doable mid-October, can become frustrating a certain number of days into a new routine. Continuing with the NaNoWriMo example, we can make daily writing “spicy” by not forcing a linear process. Start at the beginning. Jump to the end. Narrate an interesting conversation or experience somewhere in the middle. We might find a section of the story so fascinating we churn out 2,500 words. If we’re struggling at the 1,000-word mark on a given day, we can write character or setting descriptions to be plugged in later.

Consider an audacious goal you are trying to complete before year-end. What do you have to do every day (or every week day) to keep momentum towards that objective? To the extent these actions feel novel we remain excited and motivated. When we find the tasks becoming more repetitive, we need to identify how to add spice so our “stick to it” stays intact.

Did you share your high impact target on our LEADistics Facebook page yet? Be bold! Share what you’ve committed to. Today, revisit the page. Add how you’re working towards this goal and anticipate what barriers you might need to overcome on this journey. What you can do to make your effort spicy? If you post, we’ll offer feedback or feed forward. Tomorrow, come back here. We’ll be covering more ways to stay on track.

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