Last November, I participated in NaNoWriMo, a month long writing frenzy with the sole goal of writing 50,000 words (“quantity, not quality”). Not only was it fun to have such an arbitrary goal, but I was able to get down storylines that had been banging in my head for a long time, got to flex my narrative writing muscles (it’d been a while), and I was able to accomplish something concrete (which became more concrete when I stopped editing the book and printed it via LuLu.com).
No, this month I’m not going to participate in NaNoWriMo, despite being in the midst of my own writing frenzy on a new and more complex book. Though, the idea of spending 30 straight days of barfing out a story no longer seems far-fetched, now that I have done it once.
Which leads me to the idea of the effect of setting goals for the heck of it.
Twenty-one days to habit
Back in September I participated in a discussion around health monitoring devices and behaviour change. We wondered a bit why many of these devices, such as the FitBit, only held interest for about three weeks. We thought it had something to do with the idea that repeating a behaviour for 21 days is enough to form a habit. Might it be that after three weeks, folks no longer needed to measure themselves, that they had internalized (made habitual) the understanding that the device revealed?
Indeed, I too found that after three weeks, the FitBit was less relevant to my daily life – my behaviour was modified, I was more aware of my own activity levels.
That got me thinking what I could accomplish in three weeks that might lead to a new behaviour. And, with NaNoWriMo in mind, what kind of accomplishment might I be proud of after those three weeks.
Around the same time, I saw in someone’s Twitter bio that he had run consecutively for hundreds of days (though it might have been thousands).
Therefore, I decided that I would run consecutive days, 5km or more, for three weeks straight. Since I made the decision at the end of September, I figured to make it neat, I made it “consecutive running from 01Oct to 21Oct,” not counting my runs of 29 and 30Sep.
Obstacles, of course
The catch was, for most of October, I was traveling to Germany and California with many day trips, as well, meaning that I had to squeeze in my runs as best I could. For example, I ran jet-lagged on my first night in Germany, after arriving on the red-eye in the morning and hopping off to another town for a day trip. I ran late late at night (11pm PST) on a treadmill (only time I didn’t run outside) full of rich food and booze after a day with friends in California (oh, and this was two days after returning from Germany – so double jet-lagged there). A few days later, I went out for a run hours after returning from California on a red-eye (oh, it was painful, though not as much as the treadmill).
Towards the end of the month, I had a day-trip to NYC and other day-long activities that had me running laps up and down my 200m-long driveway and a bit around the property for variety (the dogs found it amusing) – it was starting to get dark early and one can’t run at night on the roads around my house.
I even headed out on the windy and wet morning as hurricane Sandy approached. And the night after Sandy, it was a torrential downpour that I was about to head out into but was lucky that the rain stopped just as I was heading out. And the 2nd day full moon lit the way behind a thin veil of clouds as I did 200m sprints up and down my driveway.
Exceeding goals to inspire the next goal
When I hit day 21, I realized that I could keep doing this, so I modified my goal to go all 31 days of October. And I did. Though I must say, I did not run on the 1st or 2nd of Nov (I will, indeed, go out today, 03Nov on a long run, when I post this).
When I tallied up my distance, I realized by the third week, that if I kept up the pace, I could hit 160km (100mi). While the main goal was 31 days, I made sure I broke 160km (I ended up doing 168km).
So now, the next arbitrary goal is to hit 160km again in November. This reduces the anxiety of having to run consecutive days, but raises the anxiety that I now have to do more longer runs, especially if I skip running days.
Let’s see. I might have to report back if I make it or not.
I think this arbitrary goal got me out running more, setting a big goal that might be a permanent goal. Much like NaNoWriMo showed me I can crank out a book if I just get down and do it, achieving and exceeding my running goal gives me confidence in setting bigger goals.
Don’t you think?
Do you set arbitrary goals to get you to do things, just for the heck of it? And have you succeeded in those goals?
Image via Josiah Mackenzie
