Three song commitment

Today’s blog is for those who often struggle for motivation. It is a simple trick to overcome procrastination but in no way aimed to delve into the deeper reason behind why you avoiding undertaking tasks in certain areas of your life - that’s more personal and would required one on one coaching. I heard about this technique from a friend and I really liked it. As the title suggests there is music involved. The reason for this is twofold. The first reason being one that the music will distract you and allow you to get into the spirit of things and tackle the task. The second reason is that people tend to have a very emotional response to music - they not only hear it but they really feel the songs that they love and it causes a shift in the way they experience the situation - if we can harness the emotion that you attach to each song and link or anchor it to the task you may find that it starts to change the way you feel about the task as you do it each time.

So what will you need? Three of your favourite songs - now only you will know the songs for this - I would suggest that they would be the ones that you turn up when you hear them on the radio, the ones that lift your spirit when you hear them played or for some of you they will be the ones that you sing at the top of your lungs when your drunk on a Friday or Saturday night. Now once you have these three songs you will need an mp3 player, cd player, walkman or if you are my Nan a record player - hey this blog doesn’t discriminate on age - as far as I am concerned it’s never too late to take steps to improve yourself and the way that you experience the world around you. 

Now the next time you think of a task you don’t want to do, and not only not want to do, but  you successfully manage to continually put off put the music on and make a commitment that you will apply yourself for three songs. You can do that right? Three songs is nothing. It will be anywhere between 6 -12 minutes depending on the songs that you have selected. The time will fly by in an instant. It will be over with the click of a finger.

Now here is the rational behind it. The reason we tend to put tasks off that we think they are too large or will take too much time complete - we never give ourselves the chance to get started and never gain any momentum because all we see is the mountain that lay before us. By attacking the task with the technique outlined above you overcome this issue because you are not committing to finishing the task, you are not making any promises as to how far through it you will get - all you are committing to is applying a dedicated effort for as long as the three songs run for - the three songs that you enjoy and that will be a pleasure to listen to. The music will help side track you and pump you up. And here is the thing - it’s surprising how much momentum you can gain once you start something. Before you know it the three songs are over and you may decide to continue working on the task or you may decide to stop - the choice is yours as you already fulfilled your three songs commitment. 

So give it a go and see if it makes a difference. This works in all areas of your life - think cleaning, the gym, studying, starting assignments, writing reports etc. Just think of all of the areas of your life that you can apply this to. I’ve started using it lately and have found it has made a tremendous difference. In fact I’m listening to music as we speak and I have gone way past the initial three songs that I committed to.

Now before I sign off today I wanted to share something with you. I heard this the other day that struck a chord with me. In previous blogs we have looked at the idea that as individuals we assign meanings to events - an event is just an event - the meaning that you assign to it is based on your previous experiences. I was listening to another audio book the other day and the reader described this idea slightly differently - its funny how we can hear the same thing time and time again and then hearing it put in a slightly different manner causes a shift and for things to finally click. The idea that he shared and the question he posed can be summated as follows: We are the sculptor of our lives and have the ability to shape the way that we see and experience the world, how is it then that we forget we have this power, and so many of us end up living our lives not as sculptors but as sculptures?

I’ll leave you with that thought. Give the exercise a try in the next couple of days and see how you go - as usual I would love to hear about your experience with it and answer any questions that you may have.

Until we meet again.

Dan