“My Resolutions,

Couldn’t get me out of bed,

With stakes, I have begun”

It is the beginning of March and it finally feels like spring. Now that the cold temperature have passed, I no longer have an excuse for not following through with my new year’s resolutions (I was blaming the cold for not going on morning runs). Like many others, I always make these promises to myself, but “life” gets in the way. I find myself on the couch watching TV in the times I should be doing these things. I seem to blame it on, “being tired from work.”

Recently, I have added stakes to the game, a commitment I hoped would motivate me to start my resolutions. I have read about this technique many times (stickk.com), but have never followed through. One of my few resolutions was to go on morning jogs 3-5 times per week (Benefits I have read about). So far this year, I had done this 1 single time. In the past 8 days, I have gone 6 times. What did I do differently? I added stakes to the game by signing up for my first 5k. That might not sound like much but it has been enough to get me out of bed in the morning and I don’t want to embarrass myself on race day.

By committing and completing my morning jog goals this week, it has given me motivation and momentum to take other: read, meditation and write to name a few. Each day I have run in the morning I have also done the three other thing. Once the first domino falls, the others seem to come easier. A week certainly doesn’t create a habit but going from 6 days jogging to 7 is a lot easier than going from 0 to 1.

I hope this inspires someone else to get out there and take this first step; to take the first step from 0 to 1 on whatever goal your are planning to achieve. Create some stakes in the game, no matter how big or small they are, and they just might help you too.