Mediations #20: What you do on bad days matters more than on good days
Only 8-9% of people keep their New Year’s resolutions, but achieving them requires consistent action beyond motivation.
What you do on bad days matters more than on good days
I am considering making this newsletter more helpful for you by extending its content while reducing the time required to read it. So, your return on investment should increase with every issue. I decided to open the issue with a few paragraphs of text, focusing on one timeless idea. Then a few things across the world that I found great—a product, some news, a person. I’ll try this and look forward to your feedback. Hit reply and let me know what you think!
Four months have passed since New Year’s resolutions. According to statistics, 23% of the people quit within the first week, 43% by the end of January, and up to 80% by mid-February. At the end of the year, we will have 8-9% of the people remaining. The long story short is that fewer than 1 out of 10 people stick to their resolutions. Which group are you in? One in 10 or the remaining 9? I’m somewhere in between (we’ll see at the end of the year).
Albeit the majority of my resolutions are on track, I abandoned a few. It’s challenging to keep pushing and staying on track. There is one thing I constantly remind myself: if I wait for motivation or inspiration to arrive, I will most likely not find it. Even when I do, I probably won’t take any action about it.
We all have good and bad days. It’s easier to work out or eat healthy when we are in a good mood. But “what you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days,” says Kevin Kelly.
I try to think of all my resolutions as my work. I work every weekday, even if I’m not motivated. Why not think of the new pledges we make to ourselves in the same way? As I’m trying to change how I live, who said it’s gonna be like a vacation?
The best we can do: Take the action today, quit tomorrow. Action creates progress; progress turns into momentum, and momentum eventually brings motivation.
Good to Great
I share max three things I found interesting, great, cool, etc.
LEGO F1 GP in Miami. Think about the engineering, the planning, and building the real-size ten F1 cars with Lego. A team of 26 people spent 22,000 hours and used a total of 4 million bricks. 🤯 Why? F1 and LEGO are both about pushing boundaries; why not do it together and create a successful marketing campaign?
Bill Gates is shutting down the foundation and giving away all his wealth (~$108bn). It blows my mind how much wealth a person can accumulate. Anyway, he finally decided to give it all away.
Download, print, and hang on the wall: How to instantly feel better?