Tool For Tuesday: Call A Friend. Share Your Commitment.

I never make new year’s resolutions—I try to make a daily commitment.

I call a friend and we share our commitments. I might say, “Today I’m committing to writing at least 1000 words.” She’ll say, “Today I’m committing to going to the gym and working out for at least 30 minutes.” Here are 4 reasons why that works better.

We can’t change the world over the weekend–but we can change a small behavior that does change our world.

We speak our goals out-loud and that gives them bang and force.

When we hear ourselves speak we gain clarity. We’re not just daydreaming—we are taking positive steps. We are involved in reinvention, transformation.

Encouragement is a two-way street. (Hence the illustration.) En-courage is like em-power. By giving encouragement, we give courage. And get it back like winds behind our sails.

Today’s Commitment: Call a Friend. Share Your Commitment–just one thing you’re going to do today to unblock the pain, kindle the match, open the door, breathe the air, shut the door on past failures, flap your wings, try something new. Go on. Pick up that phone.

This post was inspired by Laura Vanderkam who wrote in a post that we have to substitute Someday for Monday. Meaning for right now, today, which is no longer Monday but Tuesday. Never too late. She has great ideas on time management — I interviewed her on my blog here.

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books, including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a reporter for Israel21C, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.

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2 Responses to Tool For Tuesday: Call A Friend. Share Your Commitment.

Marylin Warner says:

October 2, 2012 at 1:22 pm

Another inspiring post.
When a friend had foot surgery, she asked six of us to be her accountability buddies. Wednesday was my day. She’d email me her goal for the day, and that evening I’d call her and see how it went. Her only day off was Sunday, a true day of rest.
Buddy support is the best.

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