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So another important aspect of the microresolution is it pays off up front. You get instant gratification.
One of the problems with the classic New Year's resolution is it's a kind of some day proposition,
right. I'm gonna be thin by summer. Or even when you say I'm gonna be neat, you're sort
of positing this person you're going to become one day who's neat completely. And every day
that you're not neat, you're basically failing and telling yourself you're failing. And then
when you quit because you're sort of overwhelmed, you kind of end up empty handed. You don't
really have anything that lasts to show for it.
The idea of a microresolution is it pays off up front. What you pledge to do is what you
get, okay. So and that is the reward. you are sort of at goal your very first day. So
if you say, "Okay, what I'm gonna do is dine leisurely and savor my food and drink" you
are at goal the day you start doing it. It's all about sustaining it.
So you get the payoff up front and then you, as you sustain it that payoff lasts. Instead
of I work for six months, I don't get there in six months and then I end up with nothing.
One thing I don't like about the notion -- a lot of people describe microresolutions as
steps.
Well, yes, when you string them together they add up to something else. But, no, they're
goals in themselves. They have value -- intrinsic value. It's not that I do 20 of these things
and then I get my goal. I do this thing and I achieve my goal. If you make your bed in
the morning and you learn to do it every day, that's what it is and that made bed will pay
you a lot of -- you'll get a lot of joy from that made bed if that's one of your goals.
If it isn't, you won't. But if it is, actually learning to do it will give it to you. So
you get paid up front - very important.