A good friend of mine asked me how it was going with my blog. (I have another website called How To Be Dapper)
I said it was going okay. I’d hit a plateau of email subscribers and the traffic wasn’t really picking up.
‘What do you need to do to improve it?’ he said.
I needed to make some videos.
‘Why haven’t you done it yet?’
I needed some equipment and to learn how to edit videos.
My reasons as to why I hadn’t done it sounded lame.
I realised I needed some accountability to take action.
I’d read from several sources (Tim Ferriss, Nerd Fitness and Timothy Marc) that sizeable cash bets are powerful motivators.
So I said, ‘How about if I don’t put up a video on my site by the end of the month, then I owe you £500?’
£500 is a lot of money.
I have it but it would hurt to have to cough that up.
He said, ‘Okay but do it by the end of next week.’
I immediately started to backtrack and said two weeks.
He said ‘What would Arnie do? He’d have it done. No excuses.’
Okay. That was convincing.
As I shook his hand, I was excited.
It was exhilarating.
It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I felt the rush of making a commitment.
I immediately started planning how I would execute.
I would need to order the equipment that day to arrive on Amazon Prime next day.
Then write a script.
Then practice and film.
Then edit on iMovie.
Then upload it to YouTube.
Then embed it on my website.
In the end, I uploaded it two days early.
So if you want to take action but find yourself procrastinating, try making a big cash bet, proportionate to your net worth. So you have a lot of money, make it a bigger amount. If you don’t, then adjust accordingly.
Whatever the figure, it should hurt if you don’t execute.
Really sting.
£500 would have been a kick in the balls.
Make the timeframe specific and make it tight.
The shorter the deadline, the better because it forces you to take action today.
If I had to deliver the video in 3 days, I would have had to make it happen.
What do you need help taking action with? Let me know in the comments.