Can I practice even when everything sucks?

It’s easy to commit to a practice when things are going well.

The times I fail is when shit gets messy: being under-resourced, angry, sad, upset, distracted, bored, exhausted.

Practicing, building new habits and making change when it’s hard is the real jam. How do we show up when it’s tough?

I’m writing this morning’s Thought even though my mind is distracted. Even though my ideas are jumbled and not as clear as yesterday. Wake up, write post. That’s my practice. Everything else is just noise until this is done.

The single most important change I’ve made in my relationship to practice is to triple down when things are not great. I have compassion for myself and not wanting to lean in, and I tap into my resiliency knowing that this too is just a passing phase.

Maybe tomorrow it’ll be easy again and my thoughts won’t feel so forced. Maybe not. Regardless, I’ll still be here putting in the work.

How do I respond?

Today is the day when most people's New Year's Resolutions kick in. Enjoy the holiday on the first. Start on the second.

And inevitably, there will be people who break their resolutions today or tomorrow or next week or next month. Whenever. Doesn't matter. It happens.

Some people say that resolutions are bullshit, and instead create goals for the year or a vision board or roadmap. Some people want to cultivate lifestyle changes. Call it what you want. For this conversation, let's just say that there's something that wants to be accomplished.

I know this goes against positive psychology and doesn't look pretty in fancy type on instagram, but it has served me well in the past:

Fail in advance.

Allow yourself to fail, even if it's only in your mind, so you can take a look at how you respond. That's where the juicy stuff is.

If and when you don't stick to your resolution every single day for 365 days, what do you do the next day? Do you give up? Oh well, nice try, maybe next year lol. Or do you get right back on the wagon? Or do you double down the next day to make up for it?

This comes from one of my favorite leadership lessons.

A leader has already thought about all possible outcomes in advance so that they aren't taken by surprise and can act accordingly. The best leaders are the ones who always seem in control no matter what chaos my arise, and a cheat code for this is to experience all of the feelings and emotions around each possible situation in advance. It's not easy or for the faint-hearted, but is a gamechanger.

There's also another nice bonus to failing in advance.

It gives you permission to not have to be perfect.

The need to be perfect adds a whole lot of pressure. Yes, some people actively seek that pressure and perform better that way, so if that's you, proceed as you were. For the rest of us, we've got enough other things happening in life that adding this desire to be perfect just complicates things further.

So what if you caved and ate a chocolate bar one night or you missed a day of meditation? Life doesn't end there. Know in advance what you'll do after this happens and you can respond accordingly.

Why is it so easy to break commitments?

It only took 9 days into my commitment of publishing a post every day before I broke that commitment.

I had a full day with early morning meetings until a dinner meeting late night. I didn't intentionally break my commitment. It honestly slipped my mind until the next day when I realized I hadn't wrote anything.

Once I missed that first day of writing though, it was an integrity check for me that I struggle with. At that time, my blog posts weren't public yet, as I was publishing them behind the scenes. I could very easily have written two blog posts that next day, changed the date on one and then moved on as if nothing happened.

But that didn't feel good. So I didn't. Instead I stopped writing for 11 days until I finally decided that I wanted to start posting again, not try to play catchup and hid my break of commitment, and just roll with it.

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For me in this situation, it could be said that I wasn't fully committed. It could also be that I was trying to force myself into this new behavior. Or any other number of reasons or excuses why I didn't follow through.

At the end of the day, I didn't have the right structure in place to follow through with my commitment. I didn't have a plan for what to do when I didn't write first thing in the morning. And before you know it, the day was over.

Keeping to our commitments is a matter of integrity, something that I hold in the highest regard. In this matter, it's not a big deal. The world moves irregardless of my 11 day absence.

More importantly, I allowed my "keeping commitments muscle" to get a little weaker. Time to put in more work in the gym, build the habit of publishing every day and hold my commitments to a higher standard.

Why am I committing to writing every day (again)?

I love the process of writing.

I find it way more enjoyable than the finished product. The process of writing forces me to gain deeper knowledge and understanding about a particular topic and then to simplify my thoughts. It's turning the chaos inside my head into something of value, and there's a beauty and elegance to that.

Sure. It brings up a sense of accomplishment when I think about the couple hundred or so blog posts, articles and answers I've published online over the last 8 years, but I'm even more grateful for what I've learned during the creation process. As I've looked back over many of those posts, my growth as a thought-to-paper simplifier has come a long way, and yet it feels like I'm just getting started.

This is the public proclamation of my intention to publish a post on this site every single day. Yes, this is a major commitment. And I now believe that I have the structure and space required to deliver. (And I'll have a couple of posts queued up for when shit happens.)

See you back here tomorrow as I dive into the intersection of leadership, technology and innovation.