JessVersteeg

March 26, 2013June 17, 2020

Developing Keystone Habits

Don’t forget the giveaway that’s going on right now. Click here for more details.

I’ve already gushed about Lift App before. This time, it’s not because I’ve actually received the T-shirt they sent me to say thanks for the first post (though I did). This time, it’s because I’ve experienced some cool psychology that I had only read about until now and I believe it’s thanks to Lift App.

Remember when I read The Power of Habit? I learned a lot from that book including about what Duhigg calls Keystone Habits. Research shows that committing to one keystone habit can improve and bring positive results the rest of your life. One example is food journaling. You can read in detail about it in this HuffPo article but the summary version is this: ask a group of people who want to lose weight to track their food intake. At the beginning they may forget a lot. Slowly they’ll remember to track one meal a day or maybe one day a week. Over time, they’ll remember more and more until they’ve started tracking everything. Then what happens? They become more aware of what’s going in their bellies.

“The researchers hadn’t suggested any of these behaviors. They had simply asked everyone to write down what they ate once a week. But this keystone habit — food journaling — created a structure that helped other habits to flourish. Six months into the study, people who kept daily food records had lost twice as much weight as everyone else.

“After a while, the journal got inside my head,” one person told me. “I started thinking about meals differently. It gave me a system for thinking about food without becoming depressed.” (article)

I’m totally experiencing this with Lift. I have a list of thirteen habits I’m tracking. Not all I’m trying to do daily, but ideally I would get to that point. I had an 18 day streak with reading my Bible until we did a lot of travelling this past weekend. I’ve been writing and reading more because I’m tracking these habits.

But flossing?

I’ve flossed 5 times since I started tracking in January. Three of which were this month.

In February I had had enough of the “Floss!” at the top of my screen always taunting me. “You should floss,” it said. “I don’t want to,” I would reply and then consider deleting that goal from the list. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Probably because my dentist wouldn’t be very happy with me and neither would my wallet for having to pay my dentist so much.

As I saw everything else on my list being lit up in green as I checked them off, the 1 minute it took to floss started seeming less daunting. I became more and more motivated to get the Floss lit green too.

So I decided: I’ll try to floss once a week. That is SO manageable.

Then when I did that two weeks in a row, feeling on top of the world, I decided I could manage twice a week. See where this is going?

Last night as I looked at where I was in my list as I was thinking about my evening and I realized: if I plan things right I can knock them all off. Providence agreed by getting a giant piece of apple (Eat More Fruit) stuck in my teeth, forcing me to floss.

All this to say: you should try Lift, or figure out a system that works for you if an app doesn’t. It’s worth it!

March 25, 2013

Interview + Giveaway

Today my friends Tim and Olive Chan are launching their book Then Came the Baby: The Wonder, Mayhem, and Hilarity of Our First Year as Parents this week. I had the opportunity to read an advanced copy which I really enjoyed. My husband, Willy, heard me laughing from across the house on a few occasions. The way they open up their lives to the reader, showing the highs and the lows, the funny and the difficult is really refreshing and helpful, especially for a not-yet-parent like myself. Tim has kindly agreed to an interview. As someone who also wants to publish one day, I was thrilled by the opportunity to learn from them

So without further ado, here’s the interview:

Describe how you guys decided you were going to write for a living.
There were a few factors involved. The first was that both Olive and I felt like we could not authentically live out our callings in our previous jobs, and were looking around for something else to do. The second was that the blog we started in November 2011 had been getting positive response from friends, family, and even people we didn’t know.

We felt it was a good time to take a risk, and trying writing full-time for a year. Writing allows Olive to be able to interact and influence people while having to expend too much social energy (which she does not have much of as an introvert). Writing full-time also gave me a chance to launch our own business, which was something I’ve been itching to do. Lastly, writing gives both of us the flexibility to work part-time and take care of our daughter part-time.

What has been the highlight and the lowlight for you guys in the process?
The highlight has been the chance to work together. Many people say that they cannot work with their spouse, but we’ve found it to be a positive and enriching experience so far. Working together has allowed us to see each other in a different context, and appreciate the strengths of the other person. As new parents, it gives us something to do together that does not revolve around our daughter.

The lowlight has been the stress and worry of attempting to make a living through writing. Often I struggle with the fear of failing. Though it’s difficult, it’s given me a chance to exercise living courageously.

What is one thing that has surprised you (good or bad)?
One thing that’s surprised me is the impact we’ve been able to make through writing. We’ve had many people tell us that they like reading our blog, and that it’s helped them with their marriage or as a parent. We’re humbled and grateful knowing that we’re making a small difference in the world.

What is one thing you would go back and do over if you had the chance?
One thing I would have done differently is to work on our blog sooner. Olive and I have been blogging for over 8 years, but it’s been something we do in our spare time. We’ve never really worked on building it until a year and a half ago. If we had started earlier, our impact might have been so much more today.

What advice (if any) do you have for someone who wants to publish an ebook like you are?
Write a little every day. Writing a book seems like a daunting task, but if you spend time every day to write, soon your book will be done.

Another piece of advice is to get people to help you edit the book. I’m not talking about someone to find grammatical errors (although that is important too), but someone to give you feedback on the direction and message of your book. We’ve been blessed to have many friends help us with this. The first draft of our upcoming book had 52 chapters. The final version of our book has 41 chapters. Through the editing process we cut out 11 of the weaker chapters, and most of the chapters that remain we rewrote. Our book is many times better because of the input of our editors.

What’s your next goal?Our next goal is to apply for the Aikman Opportunity Award. It is a book writing competition where the winner is awarded $20,000 and the opportunity to work with a publishing company. Our goal is for both Olive and I to submit book proposals for this competition. More details here: http://aikmanaward.com/

Big thanks to Tim and Olive for answering these questions!

To celebrate their launch Tim and Olive have graciously given me two copies of their book to give away in Kindle format (which you can read on your tablet or smartphone if you don’t have a Kindle). Details of the giveaway are below the interview.

The Giveaway

Entry method #1: leave a comment saying you want a copy.
Entry method #2, 3, 4+: Share about the giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, G+ or on Pinterest (by pinning the book cover linking to this post) and come back and leave a separate comment for each social media share.
Entry method #5ish: Follow my blog by email.
Be generous! This book may not reflect where you are in your life now, but maybe you have a friend who is planning to have kids soon, trying, or about to pop! Share this with them.
I’m looking into getting a self-hosted WordPress site so I can actually use Rafflecopter and none of this annoying make-you-comment-a-lot stuff.
Go and share!

March 20, 2013

Overcoming resistance

Forgive me if you’re sick of me making reference to Michael Hyatt. He’s clearly an influencer in my life right now and if that annoys you, maybe this isn’t the blog for you! Michael recently did a podcast called How to Overcome Resistance that I found helpful. You can listen to the whole thing here or skip down to the summary.

What is resistance?

Michael brings up a subject that I face on a regular basis and I’m sure you do too. Resistance’ according to Hyatt is, “that invisible, destructive force that opposes you every time you try to start a new project or make an improvement in any area of your life.”

Sound familiar? Know why I’m bringing it up? We all face it.

“You might not experience resistance if you decide to eat dessert but you will experience it if you decide to go on a diet.”

True words, no?

How to overcome it

Michael says we typically have 3 responses to to resistance. They are fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Also sound familiar? Hyatt does a great job in his podcast through telling a story of how he persisted in getting one of his books bought by a skeptical publisher after tons of rejections, only to have it hit the best seller list. He advises a response for each of those ugly responses: to start, focus and finish.

I’ve heard this before in reading The Now Habit. The response to fear is procrastination and the response to procrastination needs to be: to start.
The typical response to uncertainty is distraction and the counter-measure needs to be to focus. Remember when I was doing Nanowrimo last November? In a millisecond, without thinking, I learned that could open a new tab and be on Facebook without thinking. It’s a habit I have unwittingly developed for the moment when my brain has a lull. So thanks to the recommendation of my friend Diane, I installed StayFocused in my browser and blocked Facebook and Twitter during my writing hours. It worked.
The third response to resistance is to doubt (should I really be doing this?) and the counter-measure should be just to finish. Push-through. This is where going public with things helps, you have a bunch of people who you can turn to help you finish.

If you found this post helpful, I encourage you to listen to the whole podcast. He finishes the podcast by answering questions that his listeners have asked him.

Can you think of a time when you overcame resistance? I’d love to hear a story from you! Don’t be shy and leave it in the comments here.

March 17, 2013

10 Questions About Your Goals

Time Management Ninja had an excellent post on friday about goal setting. It was helpful and clarifying to me as I consider and evaluate my goals. I wanted to share these 10 questions with you.

10 Questions You Must Answer About Your Goals:

Are They Written Down? – Writing your goals down is a magical act. It makes them real. It clarifies them, and helps bring definition and accountability to them.
Are They Your goals? – Before you pursue them, make sure that your goals aretruly your own. Or are they goals that have been put upon you by expectations of your family, job, or society?
Do They Have a Deadline? – Goals without deadlines are like a race without an end. You need a finish line to define your goal and when you will accomplish it by. (You can always adjust later… see #7.)
What is the Cost and Are you Willing to Pay It? – Every goal has a cost. Whether it is time, money, or sweat. Make sure you are willing to pay the price to achieve your goal.
What Help Will You Need to Accomplish Your Goals? – Truly great goals require us to go beyond ourselves. Every successful person learned from someone else. Plan in advance how you will get the assistance you need.
Are You Focused on Your Goal? – Many people fall into the trap of unfocused goals. Or perhaps, they have too many goals at once. You must have laser focus on your big goal. It must be front-and-center in your life. It must get constant attention.
Are Your Goals Adaptable? – Life changes. You can’t control that. So, your goals must be adaptable. This is not to be used as an excuse at the first sign of difficulty. Adaptable goals change, instead of break, when life throws you a curve.
Do Your Goals Stretch Your Limits? – If your goal is to do something that you have already done before, then you will get the same results. Your goals should stretch your abilities. That is how new capabilities and limits are reached.
Do Believe in Your Goals? – More than anyone else, you have to believe in your goals. There will be critics, doubters, and people who want to see you fail. Don’t listen to them. Listen to the inner voice that drives you.
What Did You Do Today? – You must act on your goals every single day. It is not an optional activity. If you truly have the determination and focus to reach your goals, you will not only think, but act on them every single day.

My reflections on these questions

I’ve already thought through most of these. When this blog was first just an idea in my head, I considered “do I have the money to make these goals happen?” and “Is it selfish to focus on these goals?” (question number 4). We don’t want to set ourselves up for failure, but we don’t want to be pessimists either.
I hope you know by now that I love, love, love question number 7. In certain areas of my life I can be a perfectionist (cleaning my house is not one of those areas) and I tend to hold myself to a standard of performance that isn’t helpful or healthy. I’m learning to be flexible and give room for the unforseen changes of life.
The last question was a big kick in the butt! It’s unusually cold this week, though the snow is gone and the sidewalks are clear for running. I told myself I would start again but I don’t want to go out in -10ºC after being accustomed to +1ºC! Sigh. Out I go for my first run of spring, reminding myself I was running in -10ºC last November.

Have you thought about these things as you first planned for your goals? Had you forgotten to consider any of these questions? Leave a comment here with your thoughts.

March 13, 2013

Scratch that.

Having big goals requires having a bunch of little ones to check off the list to help you get there. I’ve written some of my smaller goals here that will help me get to the bigger, badder bucket list items. Today, I got to check one of those off. I now have some articles published somewhere other than my own blog.

It feels like a big day but maybe that’s because the sun was still up at 7PM.

The writing is different from what I usually write here. It’s more personal, or at least a different kind of personal. Also, it’s been edited! It’s weird seeing words that did not come from myself. It was also helpful to see how unclear I can write or how I can mix my points and switch topics mid article. Humbling.

Read on

Confessions of a Former McDonalds Addict
McDonald’s and I have had an interesting relationship over the years. I love McDonald’s and have had a tendency to lose self-control around it. At first it was infrequent during late-night study sessions with friends, entirely on impulse. Then it stopped being so infrequent.

I moved to Montreal after I graduated University and found myself in a new (big) city with few friends. My evenings after work were spent alone in those first few months. I didn’t have a lot of energy to meet new people at the end of a long day. So I watchedBig Bang Theory instead. During this time, I had moved right across the street from a McDonald’s. The mouth-watering scent of salty fries were carried on in the warm September breeze across the street and into my bedroom window.

I was doomed.

Click to read more.

It feels good, people. Now that the sun is down I can say confidently that it does feel good to scratch this off the list.

What smaller steps have you scratched off your Bucket list recently? Leave a comment here.

March 12, 2013

How to get free stuff

I’ve received a decent amount of free stuff on the internet since the burgeoning of social media. It’s actually quite surprising. Some of it was through contests, others of it was from being a huge nerd. This morning, I woke up to find an email in my Inbox from Lift (remember when I posted about that app?) asking me for my address because they wanted to send me free stuff to thank me for the nice post I wrote. That is a very smart thing to do on their behalf because now I’m writing a second post talking about how great they are. This made me reflect on how much free stuff I have received and how it usually ends up happening. Here’s how:

Use social media.

Tweet, Facebook, blog about products you love. Be honest and be generous. If you love something, talk about it. Why not? We all know no one trusts marketing, unless it’s by real people we trust, so why not help the brands we trust by gushing about them in a place where more people can hear about it (and so can the brands).

Let them know.

Tag them in your post so they know you love their product so much you’re giving it to your sibling/spouse/friend.

Don’t be greedy.

Every time I’ve received freebies it was totally off my radar. I have never intended to get free things (unless it was in relation to a poor customer service issue) I have just really loved the product so I’ve talked about it. I used to go to this coffee shop by Guy-Concordia metro called Café Myriade all the time because I worked near Concordia. I really loved them and the owner Anthony started to know me by my tweets. I would tweet about how I was bringing in my dad to try his first latte, how i was bringing any friends who came to town there, etc. I even thought about stopping there on my wedding day. It became common for Anthony to give me a free drink when he was working the cash. Those free drinks didn’t discourage me from tweeting in the least, I sent more people there because I liked the business more! Or, I talk a lot about a certain handmade journal company I like a lot, and I get a free journal for all the publicity. I never tried to get these things. I just loved them so I talk about them.

Customer service cases are different.

In those cases, we have every right to be compensated for poor service and social media leverage can get you the recognition you deserve. If you were treated poorly, tweet about it and tag their company twitter. But, don’t get in such a huff that you lie and blow the situation out of proportion. Be honest about the fact that they replied to you to try to mediate the situation (because they probably will) and give them the credit they deserve if they fix it. If they don’t, well, that’s another story. I’ve had some good and bad experiences with Rogers on twitter. Some great experiences with WestJet and Air Canada on twitter. In this day in age, using social media leverage is very wise when dealing with things like airlines and other brands. They’re often quick to compensate for fear of bad publicity. That’s where you can benefit.