The 365 Commitment

Guy Reams
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The 365 Commitment Podcast focuses on helping people make and keep life changing commitments.

  1. 4h ago

    Day 3,203 - The Feedback Loop

    One of the most underestimated concepts, in my opinion, is what is known as a feedback loop. It is a highly effective mechanism, and despite that fact, we tend to dismiss or ignore the concept in planning business and personal projects. So what exactly is a feedback loop? Simple concept, rarely implemented. For illustration, I will tell you a short story. When I was a child, I would go with my mom to Weight Watchers meetings. If you do not know what this is, it was a fad in the 70s and 80s in which women all over the country would check into these clinics once a week to "weigh in." Now, Weight Watchers provided many things as part of the program. They had a points system, nutritional guidelines, and low-calorie meals that you could purchase. They are still around and have a much more modern approach, but regardless of all the apps, online portals, and GLP drug sales, the most powerful aspect of the program is and always has been the check-in. My mom would park the station wagon, my sister and I would climb out and follow her into the strip mall location. There my mom would check in, and they would escort her to a scale, and then unceremoniously she would be weighed on a scale that looked like one you would see in a doctor's office, and there someone would officially note her weight for the week. Did she increase? Did she decline? This would be adjudicated, and sometimes there would be a discussion group to review their progress. I noted that my mom would stay when she was declining, and when she was increasing, we would quietly slip out the side door, get back into the station wagon, and put it in neutral and slowly roll out of the driveway before my mom would fire up the 7.5-liter big block V8 engine in our Mercury Cruiser. This check-in process, weekly, was a feedback loop. My mom would work hard on being healthy and then show up to the clinic, weigh in, and get her feedback. She would get advice on how to improve and what to do, and then she would go back and try again. This is the feedback loop, and it is quite effective. Yet we do not do it. This is because we do not like feedback. We do not want the potential for criticism. I remember in one of my executive jobs, sitting in a meeting with the CEO where we were discussing poor customer satisfaction results. "There must be something wrong with the data, our clients love us!?" Emphasis on the exclamation point, the question mark was to make sure that everyone in the room agreed. Reality was that no matter how you looked at the results, the customers did not think of us the same way that we thought of ourselves. Once the CEO accepted this reality, the next question became, what are we going to do about it? I had one answer: feedback loops. Crickets. My suggestion got a nod, a slight look of confusion, and then we quickly moved onto "better" ideas. I am using the word "better" with more than an edge of sarcasm. However, feedback loops were the correct answer. The company needed to ask for feedback from our customers, learn from that feedback, make adjustments, and then check back in with the customers to determine if that was successful or not. There is no other way, in my opinion. In the software development world, you live and die by this feedback. You roll out a new software package, and you wait anxiously for the first round of feedback. It is always bad, you know that heading into it. The first glimpse is usually happiness followed by a string of "could you...what if...perhaps...I like this, but..." This is how the product improves. This is how a company improves. This is how my mom improved. This is how we will all improve in any endeavor we are chasing. Seek for feedback, get the feedback, make an improvement, and then check back in. That is a feedback loop, and it is continuous and never ceases. This is the classic error: people view problems as one-time things, a project that starts and stops. Improvement is never a project and never a one-time thing. If you, your company, or your software product is to improve, then the feedback and continuous improvement cycle needs to be continuous and constant.

    Day 3,203 - The Feedback Loop

  2. 1d ago

    Day 3,202 - Be In Control of Your Attention

    A core principle to consider in daily living is to get control of what you spend your attention on before the world does it for you. I do this with a morning ritual. Every morning I like to ask myself the question, what is the most important thing that I should accomplish today? Many times I draw a blank when asking this question, so I go back and look at the 12 goals I have set for myself. Armed with that, I decide what is going to get most of my attention that day. Now things will come up, distractions from every corner of my life will present themselves but now I am in control. I can decide what is allowed to distract me and what is not. When I know what I want to work on today, it is a whole lot easier to defer or decline things that pull me away from that primary aim. If you do not do this before the day starts, then you are in the danger zone. Without knowing your aim for the day, it is easy to say yes and allow yourself to be yanked around by other people's demands. Oftentimes, that is unavoidable. Your boss calls, your spouse needs you, your child is sick, true. However, I am talking about a trend over 365 days. Most days you have the choice, and you cannot choose your own goals if you do not have a specific, actionable thing in your mind for that day. Even if your boss calls, you do have an option. Think about this. Your boss says, I need you to stop what you are doing right now and prepare those meeting notes for our meeting with a client tomorrow. That is a high priority for your boss and the company, no doubt. Normally, you drop everything and do what your boss says. However, what if you said something to the effect of - hey boss, I will get on it right away; however, I want you to be aware that I was planning on working on that strategic revenue growth plan you want me to get done today. This is not offensive at all; this just presents a very real decision for the boss to make. Two priorities - which is more important? This framing, a polite way to say no, is very powerful. When you tell someone that you would love to help but you cannot because you are working on a really important project today, they tend to be very forgiving. This is why, unconsciously, people always ask, when they start out the conversation, " What have you got going on today? What are you up to? They are testing to see if you have room to help them with what they need. This is an important moment, and if you have already prioritized your day, you have a prepared answer. So my advice? Come up with your most important thing early in the morning before anyone else can influence you. Decide what to spend your attention on. This will not work every day, but it will work most of the days, and that is where you start racking up points on the scoreboard of achieving your goals.

    Day 3,202 - Be In Control of Your Attention

  3. 2d ago

    Day 3,201 - Get while the getting’s good

    Have you heard this phrase, Get while the getting’s good? It has been a while since I have heard someone say that, but I do remember when this was a common phrase. I am not sure where this came from, and after doing a bit of research, I do not think anyone does. This is a phrase used in Midwestern areas in the USA that basically means take advantage of favorable circumstances before they change. Interestingly enough, this phrase is backed by most scientific studies in the area of human goal setting and accomplishment. As it turns out, most things that people intend to do never actually get done. All of us are sitting on a giant bone hill of coulda, woulda, and shouda. Research I have read on this issue strongly suggests that most intentions that get done are acted on very early in the discovery of that desire. Meaning, as soon as you can implement a plan after you come up with something you want to do, the more likely it will get done. I do not remember the study, or I would provide a link to it, but it sticks in my mind that the likelihood of something getting done increased by 65% when the implementation plan was created the same day as the intention was declared. So if you come up with something you want to do, a goal you want to achieve, it is a really good idea to create a plan to follow through as soon as you can. That still does not equate to any action on your part, but it does significantly improve the chances of something happening. Part of my daily process is to remind myself of my 12 objectives, read through them, and decide the all-important question: what am I going to do about this today? If you can make the turn by translating your ambitions into daily action, then just by doing that simple thing, you are more than halfway toward achieving it. Even if the daily action is small, any action is more than what most people do when considering all their hopes and dreams. So decide to act now. Do something, anything, each and every day to move just a small step forward in achieving what you want. Go ahead and get while the getting's good.

    Day 3,201 - Get while the getting’s good

  4. 2d ago

    Day 3,200 - The Intention - Action Gap

    We all have good intentions. If there were a reward for what we intend to do, then some of us would be highly decorated. Yet, unfortunately, many of our large aspirations never see the light of day. They lay dormant, quiet, with nothing but our own internal hopes and dreams to keep them company. Our most noble of intentions are just goals that are psychologically weak because they remain abstract, distant, and fleeting. So how do you close this intention-to-action gap? How do you move from merely being aspirational to an actual practice? The first step is to name these goals, give them shape and meaning. Describe what they are and write them down. Say them out loud and commit them to both written and spoken words. If there is anything we know for certain, it is that the goal that is written down has a far greater chance of being achieved than a vague and formless fancy of your heart. Goal-setting research over the decades has many ideas that can be helpful when we ponder how to go about achieving what we desire, but the one consistent theme is that a goal has to be specific and meaningful, and once it is given a shape, written into language, and repeated, it becomes more real. Translating your intention to action first requires the specific act of defining what it is that you want, and defining it well enough that you can articulate it with words. If writing the goal down is the first half of the battle, converting that goal to daily action is the second. Once you know your goal and you can read it and repeat what it is because you have articulated it, the next big step is to ask yourself this question every morning: “What are the most important things I can do today to achieve my goals?” This question is incredibly important because you are leaving the world of intention and entering into daily action. When you ask this question and make the attempt to convert your intention into daily action, then you are no longer just "doing my best" and are now finding focus with consistent daily effort. That produces a persistence that, over time, will begin to pave a path that will lead toward the accomplishment of what you have written down. This is the way, and although these two major steps may sound incredibly simple, most people do not ever take them. They remain forever on the other side of intention. So if you wish to cross the chasm from intent to action, then first write your goals down and then ask yourself the simple question every morning: What am I going to do about it today?

    Day 3,200 - The Intention - Action Gap

  5. 4d ago

    Day 3,199 - A New Commitment Starts

    I sat down this morning and had a long debate with myself. I have decided to start numbering my 365 commitment blog by the number of consecutive days rather than by the 365-day cycle. So whereas today is technically Day 1 of my next 365 commitment, it is really Day 3,199. That is what sealed it for me, one day away from 3,200. My goal is to keep this up until I hit 20,000 or die. So I keep going; I will hit 10,000 consecutive posts on May 24th, 2045. I will be 72 years old. To hit my goal of 20,000, then I would need to keep writing these until Oct 9th, 2072. I will be a little over 100 years old then. This is possible. My grandmother, for example, is 101 and still alive today. So he did it, perhaps I can to. Of course this means I better get off the couch and stop eating processed foods and get my blood pressure down. This is an audacious goal, and with that comes some serious commitments to longevity and health. It also requires me to up my game and be a bit more dedicated to how and what I write about. If I am seriously going to do this every day for the rest of my life until I am a century old, then I need to get dialed in, way above and beyond where I am at now. I am sitting here writing this blog after planning my next 365 objectives. I have a core of 12 objectives for the next string of days. Track record shows I will achieve one of them, and get partially the way on the rest. So here goes. I have written my goals down, decided on what I am committing to this time and today I hit go again. One thing stays constant, however. Every day I write and publish my journey along the way. My newfound audacious goal of reaching 20K in continuous daily writing seems both crazy and also easy at the same time. I mean, seriously, all I have to do is sit down and write my thoughts down for 20 to 30 minutes. That is not that hard, right? Then I to go through all the steps to publish it in all the various forms (video, audio, text, etc). I am generally bad at all of the above, but I sort of wonder what kind of incremental improvement I will make over the next four or five decades? What can we get really good at if we just simply persist? Just start and keep going every day. What will happen? Is it worth finding out? Is there something that you want to be really good at? Then I think you might ponder what you can do every day until you are 100. My grandmother made everyone breakfast and pulled weeds every day. Is she a pro at that? Probably not, but I think we all love sitting around her table eating that one egg and piece of toast she is famous for. So here is to my latest round of commitments. A new start to the 365 commitment, but this time it is more ambitious. 3,199 down and 16,801 more to go.

    Day 3,199 - A New Commitment Starts

  6. 4d ago

    Day 365 - The Monkey's Paw Trope

    You might have seen the movie Obsession recently. I will not spoil it for you, but it is a classic story of a young man using a talisman to get a wish granted, and he wished for a girl to be obsessed with him. Of course, this backfires, and he gets what he wanted, but the mechanism by which he gets it is at a terrible price. I was reading about the creation of this movie and the director acknowledged that the idea came from a Simpson's episode called the Treehouse of Horror. I do not remember seeing that, but let me guess: it's a classic monkey's paw story. The term comes from “The Monkey’s Paw,” a 1902 short story by W. W. Jacobs. Here is the beginning of that story: An older couple, Mr. and Mrs. White, live with their adult son Herbert. A family friend, Sergeant-Major Morris, visits them after serving in India. He has a strange object with him: a dried monkey’s paw. The paw has supposedly been enchanted so that three different people can each make three wishes. But Morris warns them that the magic is dangerous. His point is essentially that people should not interfere with fate. Mr. White gets the paw anyway. For his first wish, he asks for £200. That seems harmless enough. The next day, Herbert goes to work at a factory. Later, representatives from the company arrive at the White house. Herbert has been killed in an industrial accident. The company says it accepts no legal responsibility, but it offers the family a payment as compensation. The amount is £200. So Mr. White got exactly what he asked for. Just not in the way he imagined. That is the core of the Monkey’s Paw idea. The story continues; I will not spoil the ending. You need to read it yourself - then suddenly you will understand just how many movies and shows you have seen over the years tell this same story, but just in different ways and with different dilemmas. However, my purpose here is not to teach you about overly used plot types in modern cinema. Rather, I am reflecting on my last day of the latest round of my 365 commitment. Every time I do this, I pray for and identify something that I am trying to achieve. It is sort of a bargain, if you will. I will commit to a few core habits for 365 days in a row, and in return I will get some great favor, if God decides to allow it. To keep my humility in check, I always say, but if not, after that bargain. I will win this great boon by keeping this commitment, but if not, I will do it anyway. I know. I know. Don't get after me about this; I realize how silly it is and how presumptuous it is, but it has been working rather well for me, so I stick with it. Every year, I have had amazing success. I completed a marathon, then a 50-mile marathon, then got a job that I wanted, and was able to achieve a few personal goals that I had been working on for years. All great things, and consequently, I always make this commitment in earnest. Except for this last year. I half heartedly made a commitment, and I half heartedly considered what I wanted to achieve. The funny thing is that I got it! However, it was not quite what I wanted, and it came with consequences. I got a monkey's paw. Which leads me to this conclusion on the last day of this round of the 365 Commitment. Commitments and personal contracts are serious business. Tread lightly when you decide to make them. Do not just put one foot in. Go all in and make the commitment stick. When I have done this in that manner, the dividends have been amazing. When I go in with a lazy attitude, then I get unpredictable results. Should you draft a line-by-line contract with stipulations and exit clauses for God to consider in your prayer? No. But I can tell you this much: you need to take your end of the bargain seriously, and God will never fail to deliver. Chances are you will be provided with much more than you deserve.

    Day 365 - The Monkey's Paw Trope

  7. 6d ago

    Day 364 - The Evil Word Problem

    We all can recall with trepidation the last question on the math test; it was always the dreaded word problem. Most of us just immediately folded. The one brainiac smart girl in class had learned how to convert key phrases back into the required equation and found the word problem to actually be really easy. The one recluse kid in the back corner of the classroom could solve that problem without even writing anything down and, in fact, would refuse to do so because it was boring. So, out of a class of 25, two kids could solve the problem, but only 1 would get an A. Try as she might, and even though she explained the exact scenario using different characters, she could not get anyone in her class to be willing to even attempt the word problem. Most would just punt at the first sight of something that required any ounce of reasoning. Nowadays, math classes are really pushing this concept. This is probably a good thing, although I am not sure about the methodology. Our children bring home a packet of complex word problems, scenarios that the young person has to figure out or fail on the pending test. As usual, the parent finds out about this the night before, and thus we find ourselves trying to explain how the word problem works. We are paying for the years in which we refused to do any word problems; now we are doing them at night with our kids. It is almost as if that smart girl grew up and became an official in the state K-12 administration and fought hard to adopt a 100% word problem curricula to seek revenge on her 28 other classmates in high school algebra. Julie, please forgive me for shooting spit wads into your hair while you were finishing the math test. For the last time, I apologize. You can stop tormenting us now with your continuous production of word problems in your revenge plot. There is a difference between procedural competence and conceptual understanding, and this is what the modern word problem is trying to achieve. Our children have the same reaction we did, which is the immediate recognition that conceptual understanding actually requires us to think and, like it or not, our brains are wired to avoid that level of thinking unless it is required for our immediate survival. Unless, of course, you are the black leather jacket, long-haired boy in the back of the room who was born with a passion to disregard all procedures in life and therefore wholeheartedly embraces high-order thinking. A person can become very good at a procedure while still being unable to explain the underlying idea, adapt it to a new situation, troubleshoot when it breaks, or teach it to someone else. A good test of whether you have actually learned something is whether you can do four things: explain it in your own words, apply it in a different context, recognize when it does not apply, and modify the approach when conditions change. I tried to explain this to my daughter last night; she just rolled her eyes, put her earbuds in, and said, "Dad, can you just give me the answer? The teacher is letting us use notes." Thanks, Julie. You got me to do my word problems. When will the torture end?

    Day 364 - The Evil Word Problem

  8. 6d ago

    Day 363 - Make the World Smaller

    I have noticed that one of the things that creates the most stress for me is simply thinking about everything I have to do. It is not necessarily that any one of those things is overwhelming. The problem is that when I think about all of them together, they begin to feel like one enormous responsibility that I am somehow supposed to be managing all at the same time. There is work that needs to be done, people I need to talk to, family things I am thinking about, decisions I need to make, unfinished projects and things coming later in the week. None of this is unusual. This is just modern life. We carry around an incredible number of open loops, and technology has made it possible for almost every part of our lives to reach us at almost any moment. Anyway. What I have found helpful is deliberately compartmentalizing my world. When I am about to enter a meeting, work on a project or spend time dealing with one particular area of my life, I remind myself that for this period of time I am only responsible for this one thing. I do not need to solve everything else right now. In fact, I could not solve everything else right now even if I wanted to. For the next hour or two, I have a role. I have an area of my life that I am working in, and I usually have a reasonably clear idea of what a successful outcome looks like. There is something comforting about that. Instead of thinking about the entire collection of things I need to accomplish, I can reduce my world to the engagement directly in front of me. If I am meeting with someone, perhaps my job is simply to understand their perspective and strengthen the relationship. If I am working on a project, perhaps the goal is to get one particular section completed. If I am spending time with my family, then that is where I am. The other things have not disappeared. They still matter. I am simply recognizing that they are not actionable at this particular moment. I think this distinction matters because worrying has a way of disguising itself as responsibility. If something is important, it can feel irresponsible not to be thinking about it. The result is that we think about work while we are with our family, think about family while we are working, think about next week while dealing with today and think about several problems while actually solving none of them. We end up carrying the emotional weight of ten things while only having the capacity to act on one. Compartmentalizing has helped me separate those two things. And you know what? It works. I can care about something without giving it my attention right now. I can know that another problem exists and still decide that it belongs in a different part of the day. I can even be worried about something and recognize that thinking about it during the next meeting will do absolutely nothing to improve the outcome. For me, it helps when the compartment has clear boundaries. I know what role I am playing, what I am trying to accomplish and approximately when that engagement ends. This turns something vague and overwhelming into something I can actually deal with. Come to think of it, when I think about everything at once, I can quickly convince myself that I do not have enough energy, time or attention to manage it all. That may even be true. But the fact is, I am not actually being asked to manage it all at once. I only need enough energy for what I am doing now. Our lives have become increasingly bad at creating these boundaries for us. Work, family, news, messages, finances and everything else arrive through many of the same devices and occupy many of the same spaces. There are fewer natural walls separating one part of life from another, which means we increasingly have to build those walls ourselves. I am beginning to think that this is an important skill. Compartmentalizing is sometimes described negatively, as though it means avoiding reality or refusing to deal with difficult things. I think it can mean almost the opposite. It allows me to give something my full attention because I have temporarily stopped asking my mind to carry everything else along with it. The world can feel pretty overwhelming when I try to hold all of it in my head at once. It becomes much more manageable when I decide which small part of it belongs to me right now.

    Day 363 - Make the World Smaller
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The 365 Commitment Podcast focuses on helping people make and keep life changing commitments.

Information

  • Creator
    Guy Reams
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    955
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Guy Reams
  • Show Website
    The 365 Commitment