I turned the thing I hate the most about myself into a superpower

Using external accountability to tap an endless source of energy

For years I’d been complaining to my girlfriend about how unmotivated I am to strength train. For months I had been talking to my boyfriend about how I had to clean out my closet.

I had heard the advice to pay people for the things you don’t want to do. I just have such a strong distaste for making other people do my dirty work. Plus, why in the world would I pay for someone to do something I can do myself?

Then it hit me. Just because it’s technically possible that I, as a human, am capable of cleaning out my closet doesn’t mean I will ever, ever do it. In fact, if previous experience counts as data, it just isn’t going to happen. I finally gave in.

Experiment 1: Pay a friend to take me to the gym

I didn’t want to pay the high price of a personal trainer because I didn’t need personal training. I needed someone to get me started. To make sure I showed up. That’s it.

I had a teacher friend who was looking to make some extra cash in the summer for a trip to Europe. I pounced. We agreed that I would pay her $20/hour to:

1. Pick me up on Tuesday evenings at 5:30 pm(when my willpower is rock bottom and my craving for happy hour is through the roof). She would take me to the bark trail for a 20-minute interval run and then drop me off at the YMCA for a 20-minute weight workout.
2. Meet with me for an hour at the coffee shop next to the YMCA on Fridays after work (again, when I am maxed in the stress category) and debrief the week with me. I had to be in my workout clothes for the meeting and I had to go to the YMCA after and text her when I was done.

Outcome: 100%. This was 100% effective. THIS WAS 100% EFFECTIVE!

For a month I lifted weights twice a week and did an interval run. I did not start drinking at 5:01 pm and make a series of stress-fueled bad decisions to start the weekend.

There were also two additional benefits that surprised me.

The first benefit was how much of my day I spent arguing with myself about whether I would do the evening workout. Talk about decision fatigue — I was re-deciding all freaking day whether to work out and it was stressing me out and draining me of willpower. When I knew my friend was coming, there was no other decision to be made. I stopped thinking about it and had less stress and more energy. I never would have noticed this if I hadn’t completely removed the decision.

The second benefit I experienced was the HUGE boost I got from moving from being ashamed of myself to being proud of myself. The shame wasn’t terrible — I already know that I have zero willpower at 5 pm and to expect myself to workout was ludicrous. In contrast, the feeling of being proud of myself was a drug. It spilled into the rest of my choices for the night and even the next day.

Experiment 2: Pay a friend to help me clean out my closets

Same friend, different goal. She came over for two hours every Tuesday for a month to help me. Closets are totally cleaned out with nice clothes bagged for the resale shop and anything that can go to charity has gone. She took it.

I hate running errands, so she would leave after an hour and fifty minutes to do drop offs. She also got two pairs of my shoes resoled. I never would have gotten around to that.

None of this was hard. Starting was hard. Carving out the time and date for it and having to stick to it because she was coming over was key.

Outcome: 100% Effective!

The Post-Experiment Dip

Then she went to Europe.

In the two months after the experiment I have lifted weights twice, done no interval training and I still haven’t taken the nice clothes to the resale shop.

Right around the time I had my realization that I would never clean out my closet, I found Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz. She is an author keen on optimizing the human experience. Her work is pretty non-scientific but she reads everything including scientific research. I feel like her judgments are worth listening to.

With the tendencies, her framework is that we have certain ways of responding to internal and external expectations. There are four groups and the largest is the Obligers. These are people who are great at meeting other people’s expectations but not-so-great at meeting their own.

So, it’s not just me…

I am an Obliger through and through. I am there for you. For me, I’m on the couch drinking a bucket of wine careening down a shame spiral. Even though I might want it to be different.

There is, however, an upside to this — a superpower. The superpower is that even if I’m out of energy for myself, I have an unending reserve for other people. Not only is this good for those folks, but if I can tie my commitments to them to goals for myself, I can make anything happen!

This is called external accountability. It’s my new go-to that I’m trying to apply to all my goals.

New Experiments in External Accountability

Since this epiphany, I have been trying to 1) Get over myself and ask for help and 2) Find win-win situations for external accountability. I have a lot of goals and I can’t afford to pay long-term for the external accountability.

Here are a few things I have done:

1. Started GoGoDone Coworking Sessions, where anyone with a goal meets in a zoom room to work for 90-120 minutes. Since I’m running it and it includes other people, I’m great at showing up and getting started.
2. Built an accountability group at work. I wrote in-depth about that here.
3. Found an accountability buddy to meet me at a Tuesday morning yoga class (she is an obliger too). So far we’re 2/2.
4. Found an accountability buddy to check our food/exercise app daily to be sure we’re filling it out. So far, so good.
5. Started an exercise competition with my significant other. We compete to see who can do the most push-ups and sit-ups each week.

Here are a few things on my agenda to experiment with:

1. I found out my health insurance plan will give me a virtual coach via text for no extra cost.
2. Attend GoGoWrite — a play on a GoGoDone session but writing-focused to get me writing regularly.
3. Experiment with pre-made home delivery meals. I like to cook but if I could do one fancy dish on the weekends and have the rest delivered to my door, it’s at least worth testing.
4. Find a couple of people in my town to play “clutter police” with once a month. I’m thinking we de-clutter each other’s houses — an hour at each. Then we go somewhere fabulous to eat in celebration.

Obliging as My Reluctant Superpower

I still struggle with the fact that I can’t always just decide to do something and then do it. I keep having to change my inner monologue from “I wish I was a stronger person,” to “Get someone else involved and you can be superhuman!”

It’s a good lesson for me about humility and interdependence.

How about you? Are you someone who thrives on that external accountability?

What have you done that works? Have an idea for an experiment for me to try? Please leave it in the comments. I am on a mission to embrace my superpower.

The article was originally published on Medium https://medium.com/@heatherchavin/i-turned-the-thing-i-hate-the-most-about-myself-into-a-superpower-f5cbc35b67eb