It is a conversation that will be stuck in my mind forever.
During a mastermind in Florida, a member of our tribe said, “We all have great ideas. It’s not about ideas, it’s about doing something about them.” No response was necessary. Of course, he was right. The best ideas mean nothing if we don’t do something about them.
What is the one thing you could do that, if you did it, would make a profound difference on your life? Pick anything that matters most to you. You might pick fitness, weight loss, your relationship with your son or spouse, professional development, or your relationship with God.
You are not going to begin acting on your goals on January 1st. You will begin today, and progress will not happen fast. But with time and patience and small activities done on a daily basis, your wildest dreams will come true. These are the things that have made a big difference in my life.
#1: The Power of Streaking
The concept of streaking comes from husband and wife, Jeffery J. Downs and Jami L. Downs, co-authors of the book, “Streaking: The Simple Practice of Conscious, Consistent Actions that Create Life Changing Results”. The idea underlying streaking is simple: do one “laughably simple” activity every day that will help progress in the direction of your goal.
1st Step: Select a Laughably Simple Activity
What is the “laughably simple” activity that, if you did them, that would make a difference advancing toward your goal? Write them down.
Let’s say that you want to work on your relationship with your son who lives out of state. Your laughably simple activity might be one phone call or text message at least once a day to your son. Would this simple activity improve the relationship with your son? Your damn right, it will. What do you say to your son? Anything. You just want to show him that you love and care about him.
Let’s say you want to write a book. You might commit to writing at least 2 paragraphs once a week (streaking can be daily, monthly, quarterly, annual). The operative words are “at least”; you can write more than 2 paragraphs every week if you are inclined to do so, but you will write at least 2 paragraphs every week. You won’t see much progress at first, but after 3-6 months of streaking, you will have a strong start on the manuscript.
2nd Step: Keep a Record of Your Streak
There is no streak without a record of the streak. Keep a journal of the daily activities that you do. This will take less than a minute. But remember, if there is no record, there is no streak.
Document your streak in a journal. Document the date and the day of your streak (“Day #104”) and write the activity that you did that day. Your journal will be a record that documents your integrity with yourself, namely, you’re doing what you said you’d do.
3rd Step: Join a Community of Streakers
Join a community of streakers and share your success with them. You will celebrate your streaks with your fellow streakers, and you will be astonished by the changes that have occurred in your life and the lives of your fellow streakers.
Don’t where to join a streaking community? You are welcome to join our private Facebook group, “The Streakers”. There’s just one criteria for inclusion: you have to be an active streaker. If you’re not streaking, you won’t remain in our group for long.
How Streaking Can Change Your Life
Once you begin a streak, you will do anything to make sure the streak does not end. With time, your commitment to your streak will grow stronger and you will become a force to reckon with.
Not convinced yet? Here’s a sample of my streaks:
Weight Loss
Laughably Simple Activity: Document food consumption every day on a website.
Duration of Streak: Almost 2 years, began on January 18, 2021.
Results: Body weight decreased from 193.6 lbs. to 165.4 lbs. and my waist size dropped from 36” to 32”. I wear “skinny” jeans for the first time in my life.
Jogging Streak
Laughably Simple Activity: Jog for at least 1 mile every day.
Duration of Streak: Day #609
Results: Jogged 1,537 miles (equivalent of 58.6 marathons) and the best fitness of my life. My energy levels increase, I have no aches or pains and I feel great.
The Results of Doing Simple Activities on a Daily Basis
When you streak, you become unstoppable. No one will catch up with you because they’re not streaking and you are. The results won’t seem like much at first, but over time, you will be amazed by the results.
Here’s my challenge for you: start a streak today and join our private streaking community in Facebook. We will encourage you, make sure you don’t give up and keep fighting to keep your streak(s) alive. Send an email to jfisherlawyer@gmail.com and I will add you to our streaking community.
#2: The Four Disciplines of Execution
The Four Disciples of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals, written by Chris McChesney and Sean Covey, is the perfect complement to streaking.
Step #1: Select a Wildly Important Goal
The concept of the Four Disciplines of Execution is simple: select a wildly important goal that will take your business or personal life to a higher level. The wildly important goal should be something that is virtually unfathomable and if achieved, will change your life. Remember to think big and without limitation.
Step #2: Select Lead Factors for Your Wildly Important Goal
You pick the activity that will make a big difference in your life (known as a “lead factor”). Much like the “laughably simple activity”, a lead factor is the activity that you need to do to achieve a goal.
If your goal is to create a strong YouTube channel for your law firm, you might commit to a lead factor of creating at least 1 new video for your YouTube channel every week. Recording a video will only take 10 minutes a week and a video editor can do the editing and uploading for you. Over just 2-3 months, you will slowly gain traction on YouTube and you will have a great set of information-laden videos for your website.
If you want to create a stronger website for your law firm, commit to posting at least 1 new article every week for your website. Your content will always be much better than a ghost-written article because you know the law better than anyone. If you create at least 1 new article every week for your website, you will have at least 52 compelling articles in 12 months (and crushing your competition).
Step #3: Track Your Progress on a Scoreboard
As you streak and continue to make progress, you document your progress on a scoreboard that is in a highly visible location, e.g., your law firm’s lobby or conference room). The scoreboard is updated on a daily basis as you make progress.
You aren’t simply celebrating results on the scoreboard. You are also documenting the progress that you’ve made with lead factors, namely, the activities that will help you advance toward your goal. The scoreboard becomes a fun and easy to way to celebrate your progress with lead factors (activities necessary to achieve a goal) and lag factors (goals).
The scoreboards in our conference room are updated daily with funny snippets, “Beat Goldenfarb” and “No Soup for Goldenfarb” (our firm had a Google review contest with Craig Goldenfarb, Esq.’s firm—we lost). Scoreboarding has to be fun and ideally, you should get your team to create and update the scoreboard.
Step #4: Keep on Track with Weekly Meetings
Set aside 20 minutes every week to meet with your team members about your progress. You will discuss what you did last week and what you plan to do the upcoming week. Did you do what you said would do? This is an accountability meeting and will make sure you stay on track.
A Wild Experiment that Mixed Streaking with The Four Disciplines of Execution
Why should you do this? You keep moving in the direction of your wildly important goal and the outcome becomes almost inevitable. There’s no denying the powerful impact of streaking when combined with the Four Disciplines of Execution.
Will this work for your law firm? Here’s a sample of my experience:
Google Reviews for Law Firm
Wildly Important Goal: Increasing our law firm’s Google reviews, so our firm stands out above our competitors on the web.
Lead Factor: Request at least 1 Google review for law firm every day.
Duration of Streak: Day #606
Results: Google reviews increased from 124 to 541. There is only 1 law firm in New York with more Google reviews and our firm’s reviews are a consistent source of new leads.
To put this in perspective, it took 8 years for my law firm to get 124 Google reviews. When combining streaking with the Four Disciplines of Execution, we generated 417 Google reviews.
#3: The Power of an Accountability Coach
Ideas mean nothing without implementation. So, what can you do to take this to a higher level? You need an accountability coach, namely, a friend or colleague who will hold you accountable with daily phone calls at a specific time, e.g., 9 p.m. every Thursday. You will report your progress every workday and hold your partner accountable for their goals.
Will this work for you? What have you got to lose? If you want to work with an accountability coach (or me), let me know (jfisherlawyer@gmail.com or cell: 518-265-9131) and we’ll make an introduction. You’ve got to try this—there is nothing more powerful (credit: St. Petersburg, Florida disability lawyer, Nancy Cavey, Esq., for accountability coaching).
Let’s make TODAY the beginning of a great future.
Image by Simon from Pixabay
