You can’t beat self-employment.
Working from home.
Working in your pajamas.
Working your own schedule.
Working the way you want to.
No commute.
No office politics.
No pointless meetings.
No bosses breathing down your neck.
Sounds like a dream job, right?
Well, it is. Most of the time.
EXCEPT FOR ONE PROBLEM:
You’re the only person who can hold yourself accountable.
And if you don’t hold your own feet to the fire –
eventually they’re going to freeze.
And frozen feet don’t make money.
This is about discipline.
This is about self-motivation.
This is about commitment to consistent action.
Whether you work at home, work by yourself or work in an
independent role, consider these ideas to make sure you motivate yourself to
execute what matters:
1. Shake hands with yourself.
Somewhere down the line, you’ve had manager, boss or supervisor – that you
wanted to strangle with an orange extension cord. And my guess is: You weren’t
especially motivated by their words, right?
Lesson learned: People rarely remain accountable to people
they hate.
If you plan to be the person holding your own feet to the
fire, the first key is simple: You better like yourself. Otherwise it’s going
to be extremely hard to listen. And if you think that sounds corny, you’re
right – it is. But corny doesn’t mean ineffective.
The second key is to establish expectational clarity with
yourself. After all, the enemy of accountability is ambiguity. And a flawed assumption
about yourself can set the whole process in misdirected motion.
The
final key is to isolate your why. To assess your own motives. Because when you
know why something is important to you, you never fail to impose the
accountability required to execute it. What kind of relationship do you want
to have with yourself?
1.
Ask
yourself focus questions. If what you’re doing – right now – is not
consistent at 6AM, dressed and ready to go to work. But I didn’t go to an
office; I went to a coffee shop. Just to have somewhere to go. Just to get into
the right mindset. And I’d spend the next two hours reading, relaxing,
journaling and prepping my day. The cool part was, I’d see the same people each
morning. And if I got lazy and slept in, they’d always ask, “Scott, what
happened yesterday? We missed you!” Over a period of two years, this daily
commitment sharpened my discipline and laid a foundation of self-accountability
that became essential in my career. I don’t go to the coffee shop anymore, but
I still start work at five. It’s hardwired into me. What ritual will you build into your daily schedule to convince
yourself that you actually have a real job?
2. Design your ideal day. If you don’t impose
(some) structure into your otherwise chaotic schedule, the entrepreneurial
undertow will carry you out to the sharks. And when I say sharks, I’m referring
to the chorus of meaningless distraction, seductive attention magnets and other
ruthless villains of your time. Your challenge is to introduce enough structure
to fight that undertow. After all: Routine is healthy. Routine prevents
insanity. Routine curtails procrastination. What’s more, ritualizing your days
prevents you from saying, “Why the hell am I doing this?” Without such
structure, you wind up (artfully) creating constant distraction that prevents
you from seeing the pointlessness of your activity. On the other hand, I’m not
a proponent of over scheduling. I’ve been guilty of this in the past.
Ruthlessly regimenting every minute of your day might keep you accountable to
yourself, but it also might cause an ulcer. Your challenge is learning balance
structure with spontaneity. What’s a
typical day like for you?
3. Establish metrics that matter. While
facilitating a recent leadership retreat, one of my participants said – and I
quote – “The other day I cut the grass just to feel like I did something.” Good
lord. But, I guess good for him for executing that task. Too bad that task
didn’t matter. That’s the rub with self-accountability: If you’re going to kick
your own ass, you better wear a relevant shoe. Otherwise you wind up executing
– exquisitely – something inconsequential. Consider this: First, establish
weekly criticals. These are the five key tasks that absolutely need to be
executed by the end of the week for that week to be considered a success.
Otherwise you’ve just wasted seven days of your life. Second, develop daily
essentials. These are the three highly valuable activities that absolutely need
to be accomplished for that day to be considered a success. Ultimately, the
effectiveness of this practice comes from the small-scale, non-threatening
nature of the metrics. What’s more, if you focus on small wins, the larger
victories will happen by themselves. I’ve been logging these two metrics daily
for eight years. It works. Are you
winning a game that (actually) matters?
4. Create a nonstick surface. When you
used to bake cookies with your mother, what was the first step in the process?
Right: Dust the counter with flour. Why? So the dough didn’t stick. Same thing
goes with self-accountability. If you want to avoid getting stuck in trap of
self-employed sluggishness, you need to take measures to create a nonstick
surface. My suggestion is to take short breaks every ninety minutes. This helps
your body and mind refuel. Especially if, during your break, you go
perpendicular to the task at hand. For example, to break from writing, I pick
up my guitar. Why? Because after eighteen years of playing music, I don’t have
to think anymore. I just start jamming. And when your occupation is to think
for a living, nothing could be healthier for keeping your schedule on task than
to give your break a break. Are you
punctuating your day to unstick yourself?
5. Don’t beat yourself up when you fall short.
Just because you’re self-employed doesn’t mean you’re not human. (Except for a
few of my robot friends, but they’re probably not reading anyway. Lazy punks.)
Anyway, in your quest to stay accountable to yourself, recognize that you will
miss the mark from time to time. Learn to be okay with that. As my yoga
instructor constantly reminds us, “Try not to pass judgment on yourself. When
you interrupt stillness or fall out of posture, just notice it.” Try this: Next
time resistance gets the best of you – let’s say you unexpectedly oversleep
till ten on a Tuesday – use that moment as a bell of awareness to send
vibrations of self-accountability through your bones. Instead of smashing your
head into the maple bedpost telling yourself how much of a worthless, lazy
excuse for an entrepreneur you are, brainstorm how you might be able to recoup
that missed time later in the day or week. Could you have a working lunch?
Could you read while you exercise? Could you catch up after dinner instead of
watching the three-hour finale of “So You Think You Can Dance?” Look. Don’t be
so hard on yourself. It happens. Will you
be kind to yourself when you fall short?
6. You are the result of yourself. That’s
the thorny, self-confrontational reality of self-employment: If you don’t do
what you told yourself you were going to do, the only person around to notice,
is you. Which means there’s nobody to blame. Which means the onus is, was, and
always will be, on you. Because even if you work alone, even if you spend every
day sitting in your living room wearing your pajamas, you’re always in a
relationship with yourself. You still have to sleep with who you are, every
night. Don’t create a reputation for
unreliability. As Sir Josiah Stamp once wrote, “It is easy to dodge our responsibilities,
but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” Ultimately,
assuming success is somebody else’s fault is the hallmark of an immature mind.
And immaturity pollutes practically all behavior. Never forget that you are sole
source of your own job security. Have you
allowed yourself to fully and confidently face your own responsibility for your
career?
REMEMBER: The long-term survivability of your
business is dependent on your ability to kick your own ass.
Yes, laziness becomes extremely attractive when you know the
masses will never know the difference.
But as an entrepreneur, holding your own feet to the fire is
part of the job description.
So, stay committed to being committed.
Because sometimes, you have to administer the medicine to
yourself, no matter how bad it tastes.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you willing to open wide and swallow the syrup of
self-accountability?
________________________________________________________________________
Scott Ginsberg is the
World Record Holder of Wearing Nametags. He's the author of thirteen books, an
award-winning blogger, professional speaker and creator of NametagTV.com. He
specializes in approachability, identity and execution, and for more info about
books, speaking engagements, strategic planning crusades or to rent Scott's
brain for a one-on-one session, email scott@hellomynameisscott.com.
leadership. sales. business development. training. marketing. online marketing. politics. random riffs and rants.
