Hacking My Brain [So What's an Obliger?]

Learning about the four tendencies as outlined in "Better Than Before" by Gretchen Rubin has offered me a new framework from which to think about my habit formation and how to get myself to do things on a regular basis. Like blogging for instance. I'm not a very good blogger. I have a tendency to forget about this thing for weeks at a time. Which means I never build up much of an audience. One of the keys to blog audience building is consistency. I occasionally flirt with the idea of just letting this thing fall by the wayside and not worrying about it anymore. However, I have things to say that I want to share, so I keep coming back to it.

What does being an Obliger have to do with any of this?

I'll repost the handy chart I made that gives you the four tendencies and their interactions with expectations.

As you can see from the chart, Obligers are the ones who do well with external expectation and poor with internal expectation. In short, I thrive when someone else expects me to do something and have a higher rate of failure when I, solo, expect me to do something. Case in point, blogging. I have attempted on several occasions to put myself on a self-imposed schedule for blogging in order to keep this blog up to date. Unfortunately, because of how I feel about internal expectation, which is to say I can disappoint me without there being really any consequences, that has not worked. On the flipside, I have no audience expecting me to come to them with pearls of wisdom (or even a possible witty comment) on a regular basis so that doesn't work either. No consequences, no one breathing down my neck to say that I should. Nothing. Now that we have defined the problem an obliger faces, how does one create a system of accountability by which one can do something like blogging without it being cumbersome and useless? I'm still working on this. There is a hashtag called #MondayBlogs on Twitter. In order to work on blog traffic, I want to participate in that as much as possible. Therefore, I need to have content to post. External activity helping to drive internal motivation. I want to blog. I just need some reason outside of myself to blog regularly. If I take part in #MondayBlogs, then I have to post a new blog post by Monday every week. Considering that Monday is currently my day off, that works out rather nicely. I can write the blog post before Monday. Edit it on Monday, and make sure that it gets posted to the interwebs by Monday afternoon in order to take part in the Monday blog traffic.

Let's look at another something I've done recently where I am running into what I call the 'Obliger Wall'. The Obliger Wall is the awareness that I want to do something, but my nature is working against me for some reason. My obliger nature is making it hard for me to create and hold onto the habit.

Recently, I started going to the gym, Planet Fitness. I've been trying to get my weight back under control for a while now and I'm more than a little disappointed in my progress. I actually started this journey last year only to end up 20lbs heavier over the course of a year than losing any real weight. Needless to say, this was a trend I really needed to head off before it got any worse. So gym membership, here I come. Problem: Going to the gym is not inherently something I feel inclined to do. I know why I need to. I feel the mild unhappiness with my body shape that prompts it, but I'm not exactly super motivated in spite of my shortcomings. In most cases, this is where I quit. I cancel the gym membership and I give up. Who cares if I look like a whale in a bathing suit but me, right? I'm falling back on the online option for group interaction in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion and Habitica (formerly HabitRPG). I've written about Nerd Fitness HERE and HabitRPG HERE. These are two of my favorite sites on the internet and they offer me a chance at accountability that I don't have in my regular life. Through my party occasionally asking me how things are going and opening up a daily battle log on Nerd Fitness, I've tried to set myself up for success. This is not to say that I get a lot of interaction from these places and no one is riding my coattails trying to get me to do anything, but the occasional how is this going, which requires me to formulate my thoughts into some kind of update (and feel bad if I haven't done anything toward my goal) has been very helpful. I'm in week four of going to the gym and seeing some positive improvement in my weight. So I guess it's working.

One thing I will point out though: Just because I'm an Obliger doesn't mean that I cannot work off of internal motivation. It simply means I have better success when I have external factors spurring me on. At the end of the day, no one cares if my books get finished, but me so the motivation has to come from within me. I don't have an agent or a publisher or even a favorite reader waiting for these things. It's all on me. If it sounds like I can't get myself to do things on my own without someone standing over me with a stick, that's just not true.

I Love This Site: Nerd Fitness

In the sometimes seemingly ever constant journey toward a positive view of one's body, there are occasionally beacons of light. I found one such beacon for myself a little over three months ago. Granted, I didn't immediately take it for what it was because I'm a skeptic, like any good nerd, but I did finally decide to get on the wagon and at least see if it would get me in the direction I wanted to go. The site is called Nerd Fitness and is written by Steve Kamb with occasional guest posts by others. Steve Kamb is a self-professed fitness junkie who has traveled around the world and had such adventures as living like James Bond in Monaco. I admit to being a little jealous of that one. I’m putting it on my bucket list that I want to be a fabulous Bond girl in Monaco for a weekend. Preferably wearing an amazing well tailored dress.

The motto of the site is “Level up your life.” It’s a site geared toward nerds of all stripes. There’s a little something for everyone. You can get healthy like Mr. Spock, do a Lord of the Rings workout, take advice from Arrested Development, or work on becoming a real life Jason Bourne, all on the same site.

What I love about this site is the sheer simple honesty of telling people like it is. Steve doesn’t sugarcoat it. There will be hard work involved in getting what you want. One of the posts I found amusing was about being boring. The point is that being boring gets results. Doing the work, day in and day out, gets you where you want to go, but it’s not fancy or exciting. You simply have to keep showing up until you get where you’re going. That is not sexy, at all, but it’s true. If you want to see things happen, most of the time, you have to persistently work, not just show up one day and expect it to be right. Besides, most quests are moving from one place to another and taking on various monsters along the way. A lot of that, the unglamorous part, is walking or riding. That’s what’s in the between pages of every great fantasy novel, the miles and miles of travel required to get to the next adventure scene. It’s kinda like magical camping, no one really wants to spend a lot of time on that, now do they? If you’re like me, you want to get to the next ‘good’ part.

Another something that I think is critical to the site’s success is the community it has built. Called the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, this group of nerds has come together in support of one another in a big way. Just browsing through the forums you come across dozens of questions being asked, lots of support being given, advice everywhere, and even a bit of healthy competition (mostly against one’s self).

I joined the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, a little over two months ago and decided to take part in the Six Week Challenge which started on January 5th. For the challenge, you identify a few goals you want to work toward over the six weeks, and then you can post about your work toward those goals as the time goes on. I chose to post daily because that was the easiest way for me to keep my goals uppermost in my mind. If I had to come back to the site everyday and report in, then I would be more likely to make good choices. I did fairly well. I had three goals, and I achieved, a B and 2 A’s on those goals. You come up with your own scoring and grading system for the challenge, so it’s all about what you think is important. Here’s my challenge thread if you want to take a look.

Finally, there is the Epic Quest of Awesome which every nerd is invited to have. This is where you put together your big goals, your bucket list items, those things you want to do/see/experience before you die kind of things. Steve’s has taken him around the world to various countries and on amazing adventures. However, Steve points out, just as with the fitness goals, you have to put in the work to get to those things on your quest list. Making excuses won’t cut it. Simply daydreaming about it won’t cut it either. You have to put in the effort. That may meaning saving for and planning the big vacation or getting 20 seconds of Beast Mode to sign up for that class you’ve always wanted to take. No matter what you have to put in the work. I find that inspiring.

Overall, I intend to stick around. I had a good time on my first challenge and made a new friend along the way. I have a few goals I can see myself truly working toward with the support of a few thousand other rebels. It ought to be an interesting ride. I'll leave you with one of my favorite, recent, articles: Dodge This: How the Matrix can help you take control of your life.