Month: October 2026

When the WOW Becomes the Minimum

Bardees, , ,

It was wow when I found a spot to write in before the start of the workday.

I got used to it.

I loved it.

Then, one day, I found it occupied by someone who arrived earlier than me.

My first instinct was to cancel my morning writing plans for that day. The spot was taken. So that was that.

Then I remembered what I used to do just a few weeks ago, before I found that spot.

I used to open my laptop and just write at my desk until the workday officially started. My regular desk. So I got back there, and that’s how I am writing this post, but this got me thinking.

You see, what I love about the special spot is that it protects my writing time and my natural rhythm.

Most days, I don’t like to talk in the morning, and I like to get something important done as soon as the day starts so that, no matter what happens later in the day, I have that morning writing behind me. However, I sometimes get long morning chit-chat visits from fellow early colleagues. This was the main friction point that derailed my early morning writing. So finding that spot was the magic pill, and when I finished my writing there and finally sat at my desk after everyone arrived, I was ready to do my job.

It was interesting to notice that my ideal circumstances insidiously transformed into my must-haves for showing up for my writing; anything less was a showstopper.

Did this ever happen to you?

When did you let ideal scenarios become your minimum requirements to get your important work done?

You ideally work when the baby naps, but what if the baby stops napping? What will you do?

You love working out in the evenings, but this week your husband is traveling, and you have to take kids to their daily activities, so what do you do? Do you skip the gym all that week? What is your backup plan?

Here is how you stop these moments from derailing you.

Forecasting obstacles using if (obstacle happens), I will (do this instead), utilizes a combination of two proven tools for goal achievement, which are:

  • Implementation intention
  • Mental Contrasting

Implementation Intention:

One of the most-cited, peer-reviewed strategies (a fancy way to say it is scientifically well-proven): When you want to take an action, decide it in the format: If X happens, then I will do Y.

Examples:

Don’t say: I will do my checkout routine at the end of the work day
Say: If it’s 3 pm, then I will start my work checkout routine.

Don’t say: I will start walking next week.
Say: I will start walking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday right after I arrive home from work.

The first is wishful thinking; the latter is a concrete plan.

Mental Contrasting:

Athletes use visualization the most, but they don’t visualize the podium and the medal; that gets a tiny fraction of their visualization time, as author Nir Eyal shares in his book Beyond Belief (Arabic edition). Instead, they visualize their opponents and the moves they might make to win when they face them.

We can do that too. When we think about our goal and the positive outcome we want, we also need to contrast it with the obstacles that will probably arise along the way, then use the implementation intention strategy to be ready for them.

Example goal: I plan to stick to my diet. So, if someone offers me food, I will say No, thanks, I am sticking to my diet.

Are we being negative when we practice mental contrasting?

Naming the obstacles isn’t negative; it is us protecting the goal before the hard moment arrives.

Use mental contrasting and implementation intentions to prepare for obstacles you know you would face on your way to achieving your goals.

  • If I feel like canceling the gym, I will call or text my friend for a pep talk.
  • If I feel too hungry at night, I will make a salad.
  • If I want to scroll in front of my kids, I will take my phone to another room.
  • If my favorite spot at the coffee house is occupied, I will find a new favorite spot or ask the person there to tell me when they finish
  • If I start a focused session at work, I will put my phone in the drawer on silent until the session is over.

How will you use these tools this week to overcome distractions and your requirements that have become excuses?

HT to Jon Acuff for making me notice this procrastination strategy in his book Procrastination Proof, ending this article with his words seems fit:

“Never confuse preferences with requirements.”

When the WOW Becomes the Minimum

The Arrival Fallacy

Bardees

Have you ever fallen into this trap?

You work hard towards a goal, and then you achieve it. You feel happy for a day or a week. Then that’s it. Life becomes ordinary again. Like you never achieved something massive. Like it’s nothing that you paid off that debt or completed that race or got the promotion.

Enter: The Arrival Fallacy.

It’s that false belief that once we finish a goal, everything will change and we will be forever transformed.

Many champions who achieved world-record feats said they felt the sting of the arrival fallacy a few days after.

Here is a story that author Brad Stullberg shared in his book The Way of Excellence:

“For as long as he can remember, the basketball superstar Ray Allen dreamed of winning an NBA title. He was the consummate professional, never missing a practice. He spent hours upon hours refining his already world-class jump shot. He made all-star games, won three-point shooting titles, and even starred in a popular Hollywood movie, He Got Game. Only one accolade evaded him, and that was winning a championship. So when he finally won one in 2008, after twelve years in the league, you’d think he would have been elated. And briefly he was. But it didn’t take more than a few days for that feeling to change. “I felt empty,” Allen recalls. “It had to do with having always believed that when you win a championship, you’re transported to some new, exalted place. What I realized was that you are the same person you were before, and that if you are not content with who you are, a championship, or any accomplishment, isn’t going to change that.” “Allen learned the hard way a universal truth: Fulfillment, happiness, and satisfaction are not attributes you gain from achieving a goal; they are states that arise in the process of going for one.”

Does that mean we should keep moving the goalpost?

The finish line?

Should we not set specific goals to achieve?

Of course not.

Learning about the Arrival fallacy means two things for you:

One: When you pursue a goal, ask yourself: Is it a worthy goal? You determine its worth by considering the work you need to do on yourself to achieve it and the discipline you need to impose. Brad Stullberg says, “When you work on your goals, your goals also work on you.” How beautiful is that?

When your goals align with your values, the attributes you seek to embody in your life, and you work day in and day out toward them, you improve your skills, strengthen your commitment, and add joyous meaning to your life. Every day you practice, write, paint, knit, train…whatever it is, you gain these benefits, not just when you cross important milestones.

Two: When you achieve a goal, not everything changes. But at least one thing changes: Your belief in yourself and what you can do. If you could do this, what else can you do? Finish lines transform you that way. You trust yourself more. You gain self-confidence, and maybe you aim higher next time or to break your best record.

A sports star can hit the highest high of achievement; then what? Writer Brad Stullberg suggests taking a metaphorical forty-eight hours to celebrate, maybe a week or two, then getting back to work, back to practice. Same goes when we face defeat. We allow a limited window to grieve, then get back to work.

Because if we believe this is our life’s work, we never truly arrive. We just work on getting better. Even if that better is so small sometimes that only you notice it.

I promise you that our goals will change us, but it’s not the goals themselves that change us; it’s the pursuit of goals that does.

Here’s what that looked like in my own life this year.

My big, exciting goal was to do weekly podcast episodes, but I’ve never done that for more than 2 or 3 months a year since I launched it 6 years ago. This year, I set a goal to publish weekly podcast episodes, 40 total, by the end of the year, starting in April after the winter hibernation.

When I planned this goal, I realized my biggest obstacle was summer episodes because I had a rule not to work in summer to prioritize my family, as I have been doing every summer lately. Not to mention that waking up early in summer was out of the question, and there was summer traveling, which would make the process of writing and editing episodes harder than usual, so I thought that it was time to implement the idea I often talked about with Rania, my accountability partner, which is batch recording podcast episodes together. It was so much fun and effortless. On my part, editing one episode a week was an easy task, just as I predicted. In the weeks when we did not have recorded episodes, I managed to launch short solo episodes, which were also a hit. As I write this, I have already published 28 episodes, and by the end of this year, I will have shipped 40 podcast episodes in one year for the first time in 6 years since I launched my podcast.

To show you how big a deal this is, here is the historical breakdown for episodes launched per year:

  • 2020 (First year): 13
  • 2021: 24
  • 2022: 10
  • 2023: 10
  • 2024: 20
  • 2025: 10
  • 2026: 28/40 done

The goal of 40 episodes has definitely been an exciting goal because it is double my best most recent year (2024), which was also an exciting goal at the time; those 20 episodes were all published in the first half of the year before my third baby’s due date.

What has this goal changed about me?

  • I kept waking up early at least once a week in summer.
  • Weekly podcast episodes provided content for my Instagram and LinkedIn, where I used each episode’s transcript to create posts, carousels, and reels.
  • The podcast show notes became my Sunday Spark format for the summer. The Sunday Spark now takes me 30 to 60 minutes to complete compared to two hours in the past.

When I achieve the 40 episodes, will I stop?

I have not made that decision, but it does not look like it, I want to see what happens when I keep posting weekly episodes for a year. That was my attitude when I decided this goal, it was: “Let’s see what happens when I post weekly episodes!” I will do some analytics at the end of the year of listeners growth and I look forward to it.

What about you dear reader?

What are you willing to work on every day for the coming few months or even years?

What are you willing to give your all?

The journey is worth it and might surprise you.

The Arrival Fallacy