In this article, I’m going to use my lack of social media presence as the problem that I want to resolve. The back story is that I wrote in my recent newsletter about why it’s so hard to do the things we say we should be doing. And social media is my thing that I struggle with. And one reason I identified for this struggle is that the goal is often too big, too hard and the outcome fairly opaque.
It’s probably the same for anyone with a fitness or weight-loss goal. It feels like a big vague goal, it’s hard to start, and change is often slower than we want.
The answer…
STEP 1 – Define your goal
Make it so easy you can’t say no.
Leo Babauta
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I learned this concept for from James Clear, whose book on Atomic Habits is a brilliant read. If you haven’t got a copy yet, you really really should. It has concepts applicable to all aspects of life: health, fitness, work, hobbies.
You have to start with a version of the habit that is incredibly easy for you. It must be so easy that you can’t say no to doing it and so easy that it is not difficult at all in the beginning.
So in the context of my social media presence what’s the smallest possible change that I can go with? I’m going to go with this One value added post per week, where value added means it’s not just jokey or trivial or a video of a training session. But some sort of insightful lesson. IF I do this every week, that’s 52 posts in a year, which is alot more than last year!
The key is – it needs to be so small that you cannot fail to achieve it.
And although in my mind I’m thinking, I should add some Instagram stories, maybe a Live? what about more reels… Is one going to be enough? Will it even make an impact? What about other platforms?
But I’m switching all that off. Because 1 x post per week feels manageable and it feels like I could do it.
In the health and fitness space you might have the same thoughts: I need to work out 4 x per week. I need to rejig my eating, I need to cut out carbs, sugar, processed meats, wine… But this is a common pitfall,. It’s too much . We tend to overestimate how much we can actually do. And we tend to underestimate the impact of small things that accumulate over time.
So keep it small. So small that you can’t possible fail.
STEP 2 – Make a plan
OK so next is planning:
- What exactly am I going to do – Answer: post 1 x carousel per week
- When am I going to do this? Every Wednesday!
- What resources do I need?
- A template that I reuse over and over.
- Content – this one is easy, I’ll use the content from my weekly newsletter!
- Time
- What is likely to get in my way?
- Overcommitting to stuff so that I don’t devote the time required.
- Holidays and breaks in the routine
- How can I pre-empt that from happening?
- Book it into my calendar as a fixed entry. I don’t coach Wednesday evenings so this could be a god slot for it. Plus it should take less than 15min to organise!
- Create a library of these items so that if stuff does get in the way, I don’t have to fail!
STEP 3 – Find a Way to Celebrate Success
This one is easy! I’ve told you all about this so you’ll all be holding my accountable right? But also, I do love ticking boxes, so I’ll create a 48 week tick sheet until the end of the year. I’ll probably throw in some other rewards (leggings?) every say 5 consecutive weeks.
And one last thing
The reality is that I might fail at this. It will take a while to embed this as a process. And if I do here’s what I’ll do:
Never miss twice
James Clear
Life will inevitably get in the way at some point. But I won’t beat myself up about it. Nor will I ‘give up’. I will learn from my mistakes.
And I’ll makes not to miss the following week.
Come and see how I do…
