Some tasks are uncomfortable. In fact, all the crucial things we want to do to move ourselves forward are uncomfortable. Accountability and social pressure are the best ways to move through uncomfortable tasks, but asking someone to hold us accountable is kinda annoying. Here’s a bitesize version of accountability.
We can ask someone if we can bookend a task with them.
Text: “I am sitting down to send ten emails to agents. I’ll text you again when I’m done.”
The other person doesn’t even have to respond for this to work.
Text: “I need to call this publisher back. It’s been 3 days. May I check in with you after?”
This bookending expects very little from your accountability partner. It also may give some great emotional support on the other end to reinforce that we took a great healthy step toward our future.
I used to hate going through act submission videos for Boobietrap because I held myself to a high standard of curation and I did not like sending rejection emails. After bookending a bunch of these submission sessions, I absorbed a lot of friend encouragement and started appreciating the process. I started seeing my patience, attention, kindness, and responsiveness as a generous act. I built that activity into a much more positive part of my life.