https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1FyPApRn4

Three and a half years ago, I set up this blog as the means of assisting boundary disputants and others to move beyond victimhood to become victors through personal development.

So, one would think that by now I would have hundreds of posts up and be far along on my mission of helping others to become their best selves, right? Wrong!

It’s been over 3 years since I got this blog up and running in even its present rudimentary state and I still haven’t made much traction. Why? What happened?

It might be easiest to throw out the trite saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” But, that again would be more talk and less action.

So, what does it take to not only get into action, but just as importantly to stay persistently and consistently in action in the days, weeks, months, years, and perhaps even decades to come?

Well, I think I have come across something here from my “Youtube Friend” Andrew Huberman, which can really help out.

Offering bona fides, it might be helpful to know that according to Dr. Huberman’s introduction squib: “Andrew Huberman is an American neuroscientist and associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine who has made many contributions to the brain development, brain plasticity, and neural regeneration and repair fields.”

Ok, so that sounds to me like he has the ability to back up what he says with scientific evidence. As a skeptic of the herd mentality, that is a fact which is really important to me and hopefully you too.

In the video above, Huberman shares that while securing a great vision of your ideal future or accomplishing a great goal is a great idea for jumping into action initially, this strategy soon fades in its effectiveness.

Oh, so is that the reason why I didn’t keep up with the blog? True there are a number of people who have blogs and don’t do much with them, but there are some superstars who establish the habit of blogging every day.

What is it that they may have done differently? Here might be some great clues.

Dr. Huberman explains in the video above that often successful people will actually use their imagination of fear to keep them going.

It’s the fear of all the potential horrors of what will happen when we don’t follow through on our commitments that will often serve us to just get in there and do the damn thing.

Moreover, he indicates that by using fear, we start to imagine why travelling path A or path B will not serve to get us to our destination. And the result is that we stay on path.

But, what I find most intriguing was when he explained that our body is wired in such a way that we will exert far more energy to avoid something bad than to travel toward something good.

Right here two concepts pop into my mind which I feel compelled to share.

From my brokerage days I recall the mantra: ‘Upside pleasure is not nearly as great as downside pain.’

From the bible, Jesus is reported to have concluded his 40 day wilderness trial by telling the devil: ‘Get thee behind me.’

In other words, protect the downside and use fear as a motivator to move forward instead of as a blocker of progress.

So, how am I to use this for my own purposes of getting going regularly on this blogging project?

Well, it is pretty clear to me what fear that I can use at least initially. My fear is that I will just continue to spin my wheels and not make any real progress nor grow as a writer.

But, what does that really mean? Well, instead of having an absolute ton of materials and if not having already published a book or possibly even two. I don’t have much of anything tangible to show for the last several years.

What if I was struck down today? Would I have in place my best ideas if for nobody else but for my own children to live a better life and to not make many of that I have over the course of mine?

What’s so odd is that I really do love to write. I love it so much that like most writers, I write even though there is an incredibly high likelihood that my efforts won’t lead directly to bottom line improvement. Or do they?

Perhaps, it would be best to save the topic of exploring the ultimate bottom line for another day.

For now, I want to recommit to my writing. And to leverage the learning from the post above, I am going to create some fear by seeking to make an accountability partner of “the whole world.”

Shoot, that means I need to actually go ahead and post this at my LinkedIn profile and promise that I will get another post out tomorrow too. Ok, well that settles it then!

Expect a post from me on Monday too!