So, aside from me, who is on your team for your current habit-building project?
I mean, I assume you know that I am on your team – I’m here with the gold stars and the daily posts and the complete confidence that you will find a way to do the things you want to do.
You may not have thought about it that way, but I have. I didn’t randomly choose ‘Go Team!’ as my series title – I feel that we are all in this together, we’re all on the same team, so we might as well cheer each other on.
Ok, so far, there’s you and me, a formidable team if there ever was one, but who else are we going to recruit?
Let’s think of some roles you might want people to fill. You may not want everyone in every role to be talking at you every day but you want to know who to call on when you need them.
The Expert
Maybe you need an expert of some sort – a doctor, a trainer, a kinesiologist, a psychologist, a coach – in some cases the expert will be a trained professional in other cases they might just be someone with more experience than you.
You’ll want to choose your expert carefully, of course – you can’t have a hobbyist doctor or a self-trained kinesiologist, that’s not a safe way to proceed. You want an expert you can trust on a personal level and who has skills, training, and experience that you can trust.
The Cheerleader
Perhaps you’ll want a cheerleader – someone you can turn to when your enthusiasm is waning. This would be someone who believes you can do it, no matter what, and knows what to say to inspire you.
The Empathizer
Maybe you’ll need an empathizer – someone who can talk you through the hard bits and knows when to encourage you to take a break. This person will probably also be able to remind that these things take time and that you need to go easier on yourself as you build your habits.
The Tough One
Sometimes, we need empathy and cheerleading, sometimes we need someone to say ‘Enough of this foolishness, go do the thing!‘
Personally, I don’t call on my tough team members very often because ‘just do it!’ is rarely a useful technique for me but it is good to have someone like this to call on when you need them.
The Co-conspirator
This is someone who is trying to do something similar to what you are doing. They are working toward a similar or equivalent goal, they know the struggles, they use a similar vocabulary about it.
This is the person you can work in tandem with – encouraging and supporting each other and letting each other’s momentum pull you both along.
The Accountant
This is a person who will check in with you and make sure you have done the thing.
They will keep track of how often you have done it, how much progress you have made, and they will remind you when you forget.
This person doesn’t have to be an actual accountant, of course, but accountants are very good at keeping track of things so they would be an excellent choice for this role.
Other Ways To Assemble A Team
Like I said above, you don’t need to have someone in each of these roles on your team – I just hope you can (metaphorically) assemble people to give you the support you need and want as you challenge yourself in whichever ways you have chosen to.
And, your team doesn’t have to be people you know in person.
The most obvious answer is that you can ask people you know online to support you in some of these ways. They may be online friends or they may be people who you see in Facebook groups or on Discord or wherever.
You can join accountability/ encouragement groups related to the specific habit you are trying to build.
You can choose different Instagram accounts or websites or YouTube channels to visit depending on which kind of encouragement you need. It might be a good idea to make a list of which places to go for each kind so you don’t have to figure it out in the moment.
You can pick characters from TV shows or books and channel your inner Leslie Knope, your inner Wednesday Addams, your inner Wonder Woman, your inner Harriet the Spy and give yourself what you need today.
You can gather quotes from your favourite personal development books, your favourite novels, your favourite interviews and designate them as your ‘go-to’ for different types of encouragement.
And, of course, you can post in the comments of one of my Go Team! posts and I’ll cheer you on in whichever way you happen to need just then. I’m automatically on your team so it’s ok to reach out when you need me.
Be Kind To Yourself
My point here is that you don’t need to know everything and you don’t need to have every resource in your head at all times.
You can outsource some of your motivation, some of your information, some of your accountability – whatever resources you happen to need in a given moment.
Recognizing and utilizing these outside resources is an excellent way to be kind to yourself in the process of building a new habit.
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As always, here’s a team of gold stars for your efforts today whether you are team-building or contentedly working alone at the moment.
Go Team Us!
