Give that girl a gold star
As much as I love being a runner, sometimes running sucks. I just got the new 2-week schedule from my running coach. Holy smokes. I’ve been taking it fairly easy for a while, working out 4-5 days a week, maybe 20-25 miles a week. But my new schedule is 6-7 days a week, 30+ miles a week.
I was daunted when I received his plan, but I immediately devised two rules so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed:
Rule 1: Don’t worry about the rest of the week’s training. You have one job to do in this 24-hour period, and that’s all you have to worry about for today.
Rule 2: Each time you do what the schedule says, you get a GOLD STAR.
So before my workout last night, I went to Staples and bought gold stars, scratch-and-sniff celebration stickers and other little dots with “Wow!” and “Great job” and smiley faces. I have a whole pile of them sitting under my Runner’s World 2009 calendar.
Last night I earned my first sticker, a scratch-and-sniff strawberry that says, “SWEET!” My assignment last night was 6 miles of hill work. On a treadmill, this was especially painful, so I broke it down into three bouts of 2 miles. And when I was tempted to stop, I’d tell myself, “Dammit — earn your flippin’ sticker!”
As ridiculous as it sounds, my desire to place a little kid sticker on my calendar really kept me going. I envisioned how cool the week would look if all the spaces had gold stars, or how the whole month would look! And I kept running, and I earned that flippin’ sticker.
This got me thinking… If I can use little gold stars for motivation to move my running to a higher level, what would work to elevate my business? And that’s where I hit a road block.
I’m not sure I know what a “gold star” day is for my business. I don’t have one assignment each day with a check box beside it. I have a long list of ongoing projects that I juggle for several long-term clients. For a while I worked toward a daily monetary goal, but I didn’t make it often, so I started ignoring it.
The problem is not that I don’t have things to work toward — it’s more that I haven’t planned out what I want to work toward and the steps to do so. If I had that plan in place, I could easily identify what it takes to win a gold star. I think this is the problem that many of us have — we know we’d like to do better, achieve more, make advancements. But we’ve never stopped to consider what those advancements are, so we don’t know when they’re worth celebrating.
Or maybe you all have a plan and a calendar full of gold stars? What is your system of rewards, and how did you come up with it? I’d love to hear…
Andrea on 03 Mar 2009 at 12:32 pm #
My job is all about identifying the steps and breaking down projects into tasks. Whenever our department is asked to work on something new, our first question is always “how do we know when we have been successful?” Working without a plan leaves me feeling unproductive. Taking the time up front to consciously identify the steps leading to the final objective, then checking off the tasks as I accoplish them lets me know I am meeting my goals. Then I do a little “happy dance”
Yeah, I’m easily amused.
Bryan on 03 Mar 2009 at 4:10 pm #
Put a quarter in a jar every time you reach a step towards your goal (a quarter for each mile, for example). When the jar is filled, take yourself out for a shopping treat! …but you can’t touch the money until the jar is full. Make the total amount (jar size) enough to motivate, but not so much that it seems unreachable.
Jenny on 03 Mar 2009 at 4:13 pm #
I need gold stars!
I never even remotely thought to use behavior modification for my business. Brilliant Beth! I’ll take it one step further; at the end of the week if I hit my goals, I get a treat. Now to breaking down and organizing my work to star achievement…thanks!