3 Tips for the Great Lock-In Challenge
Gearing up to get laser focused on your new goals and habits? Here are 3 tips that I'd give to you to help you have efficient momentum in getting the successful that you're looking for!
I may not be on TikTok much but apparently a trend from TikTok has found its way to Threads where it’s trending. It’s called the Great Lock-In where people are encouraged to buckle down from September to December to work towards whatever goals that they haven’t accomplished yet.
And apparently, this isn’t all talk. If you look at some of the conversations around it, people are seriously “locking in” to get things done. I read one person’s post that was asking why was the gym full of people on the 2nd day of September as if it’s the beginning of the year. Someone reminded them in the comments of the Great Lock-In push. So clearly this has gained some serious traction!
Now as a person with an instructional designer background, I love this! I’ve not only seen people talk about accomplishing goals, but even people who are making up their own curriculums to learn new skills. I feel like I shouldn’t be this excited about seeing people be excited about learning new things on their own. However, when you see a surge of intrinsic motivation in people to learn new skills, as a talent development professional, this is probably the next best thing to heaven! None of us like to beg grown adults to learn so this is amazing to say the least!
But despite my psychology nerd excitement, there’s one thing that makes me nervous.
I’ve seen many people post about what all they are going to learn and do, and it’s a LONG list.
Like a REALLY long list.
Like enough skills that it will take them realistically 2 years to do, but for some reason, they are convinced that they’ll be able to do it all in 4 months.
And that is the BEST way to set yourself up for BURNOUT.
That’s like a person saying I’m going to lost 20 pounds…in 2 weeks.
That’s like a person saying I’m going to build a multi-million dollar business…in one month.
Yes, it is good for you to feel confident in yourself and have the ambition to make your goals happen. But as someone who has had her ambition drag her by the neck to burnout land, it’s important to be realistic about what you need in order to have good balance and mental health throughout the process.
I think it’s fantastic that people are feeling a surge of motivation, but let’s be careful not to use all that motivation up in one week! There’s a way to do this so that you don’t get burnt out and give up on your list of goals. Let me share a few tips with you.
Tip #1: Be generous (and realistic) about how much time you actually have to learn the new skill or change that habit.
I think some people tend to underestimate how much time it will take them to learn a skill. Based on your prior knowledge, your growth mindset, your access to tools, and the learning curve of that skill, it truly varies. Too many people will assume that they can learn whatever super quickly. But when it doesn’t turn out that way, now they are feeling bad about how long it’s actually taken.
I’ve talked about this happening before in another article because what’s interesting is that people will even go further to convince themselves that they aren’t cut out to do it biologically or mentally or whatever they can blame. That’s why you hear people say “oh I’m not a tech person” or “oh I’m not a public speaker”. They have now created this identity of themselves to say they can’t do it so that they can avoid feeling any pain about the mistakes they made when trying to do it.
So that’s why one of my first things to tell you is to give yourself PLENTY of time. Don’t try to have some extremely ambitious time frame to be efficient in a skill. You are setting yourself up for failure because when you don’t quite meet that goal in the time that you assumed you should have gotten it, your self-talk will have a creative field day in trying to handle the disappointment.
And if you’re not in an emotionally secure place with your confidence, this can go all the way left to where you give up entirely and may even get defensive about it when people bring it up. So make sure you give yourself ample amount of time. Maybe say that by the end of the 4 months, you’ll have achieved milestone 1 and 2 of your goal. If you blow pass the entire goal, GREAT. But if life starts life-ing, and you only made it to milestone 2 by the end of the 4 months, then you’ll be in a better mental space about it because you’ve given yourself grace up front. Baby steps are definitely the way to go!
Tip #2: Don’t try to change multiple behaviors and habits at once.
Learning sciences warn us that if you try to change a long list of things at once, you’re more than likely to burn yourself out quickly and the probability of you succeeding in any of them will be pretty low. And to be honest with you, this is my achilles heel.
You see I get really excited about learning new things. HOWEVER, time and time again, I would create a whole extensive plan of almost 8 different things that I plan to change. And I would feel hype about it and say, I’m going to change all of this at ONCE! (This is also the danger zone of where I’ll spend way too much money on every tool I can think of to help me do the task which I also don’t recommend, but let’s stay focused here.)
The first three days would be great! But then as that 4th or 5th day come along, I’ll start getting tired and bargaining with myself of what I will continue doing to knock out my list. I may even avoid doing anything one day and decide retroactively that that was a rest day from my plan. By that mid-second week, I’m over it. I’ve made a decision that I’ll work on it next month. Thus the toxic cycle continues.
Please don’t make me admit to you how many times this has happened because as a learning professional of 13 years or so, I more than know better. But my ambitious spirit lies to me every time. It’s just as bad as the lie of “oh I’ll get gas in the morning before work” or “oh I’ll just do my workout after work”. Eventually you need to look at yourself in the mirror and say “ma’am stop lying because you’re not going to do this!”.
All that to say, this is a very human reaction when your motivation is high. So instead of sprinting out the gate, take a moment to truly narrow down what you’re going to focus on. So for a 4 month sprint, I’d say no more than 4 goals/habits depending on a number of variables. I may write about those variables soon, but trust me when I say, start slow by NARROWING YOUR LIST DOWN.
Tip #3: Ask for feedback about your progress.
Don’t resist!
I know, I know.
You think you can do this on your own.
You don’t need anybody checking on you or looking at how you’re doing it.
But hear me!
You can end up practicing a new skill or habit and be doing it wrong the entire time.
Until you ask for feedback, you’ll never know for sure. And yes I have seen people try to practice skills in a silo only to find out that when they finally let someone in to see their progress, that they have been doing it with the wrong form, or their presence isn’t as strong as they thought it was, or that the way they’ve been storing their food is actually at risk for food poisoning, or that the way they’re holding their instrument will eventually cause neck or shoulder pain. BUT they’ve built all these systems and habits around this new task over time so now not only do they have to relearn how to do the skill but now they have to get rid of the urge and memory of doing it the wrong way too. Who has time for that?
So find a person that you feel safe and comfortable with giving you feedback and figure out a regular cadence to get insights on how you’re progressing. For me, when I needed feedback, I fortunately knew of a few co-workers of mine that gave great insights in improving my public speaking. If you’re fortunate enough to know someone personally, then great! If you don’t know anyone personally, remember that you have the internet. You can ask anybody for their feedback.
But side note, I’d recommend offering a fee payment if it’s someone that you don’t know at all. Remember that to this person, you are a stranger. No one owes you their time to help you, so make sure that you’re approaching your request in a way that doesn’t sound entitled to their time and that you’re serious about applying the feedback that you receive.
Just don’t be afraid to ask. You never know who will say yes and if they say no, you’ll just end up where you are now so this isn’t a losing situation for you. I just caution you to do not get to a point where you feel like you can stay in a silo with learning your skill. Open up and let people give you feedback WAY before it becomes a permanent habit.
Be specific when you ask for feedback too. Instead of “can you give me feedback on my public speaking” instead ask “could you give me feedback on my public speaking specifically in watching how often I use the words “um”, “uh, and “like” as well as any feedback that you can give in how well I pace myself”. This helps to ensure that you don’t get any empty feedback like “oh you did great” because they didn’t pay as much attention to what you really needed feedback on.
Okay that’s all for now. Again to recap, that if you’re about to do the Great Check-In or if you just block any amount of time to dig deep into a skill, remember the following:
Be generous (and realistic) about how much time you actually have to give to learn the new skill or change that habit. Give yourself as much time as possible and split your skill or habit goal into milestones.
Don’t try to change multiple behaviors and habits at once. Prioritize your list and narrow it down so that you can focus on just a few things, and thus don’t lose your momentum too quickly. (If you’re interested in how I prioritize it, let me know as I’m happy to share!)
Ask for feedback about your progress. Just be sure to be specific about what kind of feedback you’re looking for to help you get the feedback that you need.
Hopefully these tips will help you make amazing progress in your skill or habit. I’m rooting for you! May you make the rest of this year a productive one.
