Accountability and Action

Perhaps the most effective primary motivator in the choices humans make is driven by social proof.

Do you want to do something really difficult, challenging, or unpleasant?

Social proof will be one of the greatest allies in your task.

I'll get into that in a moment.

First allow me to share with you the most exciting part of my day: Choosing the new sauce to try on the chicken and onions!

"Montezuma's Vengeance" MEXICAN style Cayenne hot sauce.

In fact, ALL of the sauces in those little bottles are Mexican style; I had better figure out my favorites and get them before January 20th.

These sauces were received as a Christmas gift over a year ago - the ones I'm enjoying this week were the scariest looking ones left over.

Sure, they're HOT, but not Nuclear Hot (fill your face with milk, cry a little, and pray you don't feel the same heat on the way out).

Spicy 🌶 enough to be judicious about how much you distribute, but none thus far have been put on the ☠️ list.

I have learned first hand, on many occasions in this exercise, that social proof is an extraordinary benefit for me in this undertaking.

Whenever I want to break protocol and eat ANYTHING not on the list (spinach, vegetables, chicken, protein shake), I think about confessing my lack of willpower to 150 people.

TO YOU!
The Steemians who are following me on this crazy ride. The idea of "breaking" and reporting it to all of you is more painful to me than the discomfort of carrying on as planned.

The temptation to quit out was particularly strong yesterday.

Here's what happened:

After writing yesterday's post I checked catchawhale.com to make sure I would post it at a good time (I preferably post when the whale catching score is above 40,000).

Checked the site and the score was 60,000.

Great! Posted.

THEN hit refresh after realizing the site was showing the score from the day before.

UGH. 20,000. 🤦‍♂️

No one was reading the post.

Two new followers climbed aboard the crazy train however (Nuff' Respect!) and thinking about them, in my time of weakness (true story), motivated me to go through with the two biggest challenges facing me yesterday.

The first:

I fell asleep in the steam room.

Not dangerous, thankfully, because you have to press the button every ten minutes to get the party started, otherwise the steam dissipates and the room cools down.

You know what woke me up?

Physically moving my arm to give money 💰 to a cashier I was buying fast food 🌮🌯 from.

I actually woke from a dream seeing my right arm reaching up, to give nonexistent money, to a nonexistent person, for food that wasn't there.

Got up, left the steam room, and did some serious, hardcore bargaining with myself to just go over to Taco Bell and get a big meal.

Less than two minutes into this idea it was abandoned, thinking about the Steemit blog.

Everyone, please follow me @scan0017 - I've got 9 days left, every new follower gives me a fresh boost for accountability.

Just like last night.

Your following me is, or WILL be, an enormous benefit. It CANNOT be overstated.

As demonstrated in the second, extremely difficult obstacle yesterday:

The cold ❄️💦 shower.

Here's why that shower was particularly painful:
The outside temperatures for the last week have been around 32F, or 0 C.

But not yesterday.

Yesterday, the temp. was 0 F, or -18 C.

This outside temperature definitely affected the conditions of the water. I don't know where the water pipes are or how it made that change, but the effect was evident.

WHAT a difference that made in the shower 🚿.
I mean, it was ICY cold; brutal.

The water honestly felt like it was icing up as it collected on the back of my head while I was washing my hair.

I know that's impossible. Yet it made me wonder, the water's under pressure, it collects away from my skin, in my hair, as I'm washing the back of my head... Could it actually be icing up?

Regardless, THAT'S how cold it was.

That's why, right then, I wanted to abandon that part of the experiment.

Once again, thinking of you kept me engaged in a brutally uncomfortable scenario. Thank you for reading, and especially thank you for following!

@scan0017

There was a side benefit to the crazy cold shower:

The physical pain, all over my figure, distracted me from the yearning in my tummy for some fast food.

That, or two particular parts of my anatomy retreated so far back into my body to that my stomach was tricked into thinking I had just eaten.

On that note!

Have a fantastic day everyone, I am SO excited to have you on this journey with me, and especially thrilled to share the results with you!

@scan0017 🤝