I love a side project. I’ve done a million. Some of them got me jobs, some were only seen by 100 people. But what I’ve found is that it’s much easier for me to finish a project when I know others are counting on me.
Undefined social media accountability
When I publicly share my writing, it creates social accountability from views, likes, and shares, and that in and of itself is helpful. It’s not everything but it buoys my spirits and sparks more creativity to receive social media feedback from peers. It can also help the publication I’m published in, or the platform I share my work on. Even slightly.
Substack is an outlier here. In 2020, I started an email newsletter to log my move from Utah to Seoul. I talked about parenting, packing, lockdown, and mandu. I garnered a small, but very engaged audience. Even at the beginning, when only 50 people were opening my email notes, that was enough to motivate me to write every Sunday afternoon from my bed. If it had only been 5 people, I would have felt the same. I felt lucky and rich seeing that people had opened an email from me, most of them reading it and even commenting and re-sharing it. Eyeballs are precious, especially these days, and I cared that people were giving me their time.
That said, my motivation waned. I went from posting weekly, to occasionally more, to 1x/month. Heading into Summer 2024, I’m rallying myself to write each week again. It was a meaningful personal writing practice. And I know from publishing online for 15 years that consistency is key.
Defined mutual accountability
I’ve realized there’s a way I share my writing that does even more for me. When I share my writing publicly but in a small in-person setting like in my writing group, it creates mutual accountability. I’m sharing something I’ve been working on and I know that it will received with respect and curiosity. In return, other members of my writing group will share their work at a future meeting and expect that same soft landing. We’ve created a creativity incubator with low stakes and high rewards. We all feel psychological safety, learned by safe reception, month after month, year after year. (Six and counting.) That mutual accountability is the differentiator. We can share essays about grief and loss, wacked dreams, or kids. Share chapters of our novels we finish, or don’t. We reflect the waves of life in what we share, or don’t, and the group’s tone is one of witnessing and listening, laughing and crying.
I’ve written truly embarrassing poems and song lyrics for writing group. I’ve shared personal essays, short stories, and chapters from my YA novel. Experimentation is a symbol of safety. I can ask questions, feel dumb, and try something I’ve never tried before because I know the others will teach me, laugh along with me, and nudge me in the right direction.
Obliger tendencies
Thanks to Grechin Rubin, I know I’m an obliger. This means that I tend to complete tasks or asks when I’m accountable to someone else, and tend not to when I’m accountable to only myself. This insight has changed my life, and not just when it comes to writing.
Here are a few examples of how understanding I’m an obliger has helped me:
Noom — subscribing to Noom held me accountable to step counts, meal logging, and tracking my weight. I lost 12 pounds over a year.
Therapist — finding a therapist I can chat with via video chat made me weekly accountable to thought patterns and resentments I wasn’t resolving on my own. She also became an accountability partner in my career goals and helped me land my dream job.
Workout buddy — I’ve wanted to try a bar class for the longest time but felt intimidated. A friend agreed to meet me for early morning classes and I fell in love with the class. Without her being there bright and early, there’s no way I would have showed up consistently and seen the strength and toning I have in just a few weeks.
Paper habit tracker — Check marks on paper are my friends. I check off when I read, study, walk, clean the kitchen, and do physical therapy. It’s immediately satisfying.
Apple Watch — I got one in 2020 and my activity level has skyrocketed. I’m Type A and love challenging myself by tracking my steps. Because of my watch, paired with my favorite podcasts, I walked hundreds of miles in South Korea and finally felt confident in my body again after having my kids.
Verbally committing to my husband — I’ve found that saying out loud what I want to do is helpful in me actually doing it. So, I say out loud that I’m going to do the dishes or leave my phone off and out of the bedroom and I tend to do it. When it’s in my head and nobody knows, I’m way less likely to follow through.
I’ve felt myself slip on my habits and goals the last couple of months. I give myself grace because life happens. But I’m hoping by reviewing these things for myself I remember what support I can put back in place to help myself, help myself.
What do you do to follow through with your commitments? Are you an obliger?
