The power of Fun in getting more done


I'm a big believer in rewarding your own effort. And today, after I dropped Zoe off at school, I'm here in a coffee shop by the beach. But my reward is - and I'm on a health and fitness kick - a giant breakfast.

Global keynote speaker Tim Wade on motivation for your goals and mission
Full video of this post is at the bottom of the page!


The reason why I'm finally on a health kick now is that I put a giant end goal in the middle of October: I'm doing a health talk about how to get fit and healthy on a cruise ship. Not how to get fit and healthy on a cruise ship, but the talk is on a cruise ship, and it's about how to get fit and healthy.

So I figure it's probably a good idea that I'm reasonably fit and healthy by the time I get to the cruise ship or else it's going to look incongruous and idiotic. And I'm going to be pretty embarrassed.

YOUR REWARDS

So: Mindset of Victory. Victory has rewards.

Breakfast: protein reward.

There's a gym in my condo so I could just go down to the gym and pedal on an exercise bike for a bit. But I don't. But I do only live a few minutes away from the beach, so I decided I would cycle down to the beach and cycle along the beach and all the way to here.

Actually, after I dropped Zoe off, I just continued going until I came here. And I'm rewarding that. And here's why...

A number of years ago, I made a to-do list. And on that to-do list I found myself not following the order of the to-do list. And I was like, "Okay, why?"


I had listed the highest priority stuff as most urgent and important - the Eisenhower Grid talks about importance and urgency - and ranked the less important ones. Quadrants one, two, three, and four. Work first in quadrant one trying to spend more time in quadrant two. Okay, got it.

But nope, I still didn't do it. I still was doing stuff all over the list in different ways. So I thought, "Okay, what about money? Is it about money?" So I made two new ranking columns, one for Money Now, as in, "If I do this I WILL be paid", like sending an invoice. Another column was for Future Money. I ranked tasks in this column as high if the task, when done, will unquestionably generate some future new payment, and ranked it lower if after completing it, it was only a possible income, like through untargeted marketing. I ranked everything like that and set to work on my new prioritised list.

And I found myself not following that either.

Now I was perplexed. What is it that drives me? Then I made a column ranking the tasks by Fun; what I regarded as being more fun to do. I listed things from one to five and... that was it! I was only doing the stuff that I found fun and interesting!

Now does that mean that I'm not disciplined, and I just want to do the fun stuff and ignore the other tasks? Yes. But also no. But I do most prefer to do things that are not just enjoyable, but fun.

So how do I make something enjoyable that isn't? Well, I find a way to make it enjoyable! One way is to make it enjoyable by giving myself rewards that I want and then I place them far enough away that I have to do what I need to do to get there.


And that's why lots of people talk about goal setting and being clear about your purpose, your mission or whatever it is you need to do. But I think a lot of people don't know what their mission is. They don't know what their purpose is long-term, or their big goal, or their "life's purpose", and they sort of get stuck in the fact that there's only one mission or one purpose for them. And that's really not true.

YOUR MISSION

I believe that you have lots of missions and purposes, lots of reasons for you to be here. So what is the one that you're working on for the next one to three years? Short enough to know that this is something that if you want to keep going, you can. And if you don't, you can do something else.

So what's your one-, two- or three-year mission? Because that's really what a mission is: you go on a mission, you come back, and then you get a new mission.

For me to succeed with my health kick, I needed to exercise more. So I placed the short-term reward far enough away that I had a mission to be able to get there. And in doing that, I was solving the real and higher challenge: getting visibly healthier through daily activities which had no immediately visible results.

YOUR TEAM

The other thing of course which is fantastically helpful is surrounding yourself with other people who are on a similar journey, choosing some that are slightly further ahead, and also some that you can share the growth journey with. That's going to make the trip even better.



If you've ever travelled around the world, it's pretty cool to go by yourself because you learn a lot about yourself. But it's so much more fun to experience the adventure with somebody that you really love and will be in your life for years to come because that travel experience will always be something you'll still be talking about in 20 years time.

So do it with somebody else or a group of people. Some of them, you may not know yet. Others you may not see again after a while. But working on your missions with those other people just makes it so much more memorable, meaningful and fun. You grow together. You see others grow. You help each other on the journey. And that sort of brings you closer together. And that's a big reward too.

YOUR NEXT STEPS

I love setting travel rewards. One of ours is also this cruise in October. Yes I am speaking nine times on the journey, and that requires preparation and work, but Lydia and I also get to go and enjoy the whole voyage from Singapore to Sydney. And we are really enjoying looking forward to that. Plus it requires me to get a whole bunch of projects complete to enable two weeks off. And yep, I'm looking forward to getting them completed now too.

It's creating a structure and a habit around creating results. It's one of the reasons why I'm here in this coffee shop. I just came back from a conference, and I like going through some of the things that I learned from the various speakers I had listened to, and determining what ideas I want to be implementing over the next 30 days. Otherwise, the conference was fun but a big waste of time.

I want fun plus positive results.

And then have a reward at the end.



Okay, speak with you soon!

I've got to eat this amazing breakfast before the eggs get cold.

- Tim Wade
www.timwade.com

I have two video versions, the one below is on YouTube with their captions as optional, and this link goes to a large subtitle version.



Location: 1000 ECP, Singapore 449876

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