You Should Motivate Yourself With a ‘Jar of Awesome’

When you are take stock of what you have accomplishedit is easy – and understandable – to let ourselves be caught up by what we did not do or by what we would have liked to do better. After all, that’s how you’ll improve. But you have to remember to recognize victories, big and small, if you hope to stay motivated.

THE balance between positive and negative When it comes to productivity, it’s tricky, but you should always take breaks, do things you enjoy, and remind yourself that you’re getting things done, even during stressful times. This is why you should try to create a “pot of awesome”.

What is a “pot of awesome”?

The idea of ​​the “pot of awesome” comes from Tim Ferriss Tools of the Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Artists and it’s been popular for some time. Essentially, Ferriss recommends writing down your wins as they happen and putting the slips of paper in a jar. When you need a motivation boost, you can read them. Visually, the pot even shows you everything you’ve accomplished lately.

The idea is to help you focus not only on everything that needs to be done, but also on what you’ve already done. It is similar to keep an achievement journal Or update your CV every yeareven when you’re not looking for a job, as long as it motivates you and creates a record of your work. Above all, it keeps this recording in real time. It’s much harder to remember everything you’ve accomplished if you’re trying to do it retrospectively or under duress (as anyone facing an end-of-year performance review well knows). With the pot of awesome, if you ever get called into a surprise meeting about your work or a review is imminent, you already have a list of your accomplishments ready to go.

Ways to Create Your Own “Pot of Awesome”

In fact, filling a jar with small pieces of paper is a bit of a complicated task and may not be so easy to follow as our lifestyles become more and more digital. There are plenty of ways to create a “jar” of stunning without making your office look like a Pinterest-inspired 2013 wedding. Try to leave a page or two dedicated to tracking earnings at the end of your diary or create a designated note on your phone. Create a single source of truth (SSOT) or a file on your computer or disk, dedicated to compiling your win list and supporting documents. (I personally use a notes app a lot. My win list is on my phone, where I can update it in seconds.)

However you decide to do it, make sure all the achievements are listed somewhere together so that the list expands visually. Just looking at it can be motivating, let alone reading the whole thing. Finally, don’t second-guess yourself when you want to add something. If you did the laundry on a stressful day, got all the kids out of the house on time in the morning, or answered all your emails at the end of the day and felt great, throw it in. Just because it may seem small compared to a looming deadline of a big project doesn’t mean it wasn’t a win to do it, so in the pot it goes. The goal is to keep track of everything you actually accomplish, so don’t leave anything out.

Finally, integrate your feedback with other elements of your productivity plan. When you set SMART goals, for example, clearly defining what you want to do, why you want to do it, and when you need to do it, it’s easy to look at past mistakes to see what you need to fix. At the same time, look back at your pot of awesome to see what worked for you, so you can incorporate more of those elements into your future planning as well.