Most people have a special day, or days, throughout the year. Birthdays, anniversaries, religious holidays … those kinds of dates are pretty common choices.
But for me, November 17th has always been a little different than the other 364 days of the year.
Until 1993, November 17th wasn’t unique for me, but that changed when my
grandfather passed away unexpectedly that day 22 years ago.
I grew up next door to my grandparents, and he was a huge part of my life (and of my brother’s life too). We spent a lot of time next door – Grampy Mawhinney drove us around on our paper route on rainy days, and let us wait for the school bus in his car on those cold Canadian morning winters that were made especially frigid growing up right on the ocean
(brrrrr!).
He even played baseball with us, which was pretty cool for a man who was over 70 years old, and loved the Toronto Blue Jays as much as we did. I’m happy that he lived just long enough to see the team win their second straight World Series just before he passed away (He would have had a lot of fun watching the Blue Jays almost win it all this season too!)
Today also marks the one year anniversary of the
Natural Born Coaches podcast, and the launch date of November 17th, 2014 was no accident.
When I started planning the podcast in September of last year, I knew that I would need a lot of prep time for a daily show and was going to launch it on January 1st. But I wanted to push that date up and really force myself to get it out into the world sooner. So I chose November 17th, as a nod to my
grandfather and to give myself a kick in the ass to launch six weeks earlier than I originally planned.
And I got it done (barely, I was working away until midnight on November 16th to get everything in place!)
I don’t think I would have been able to surpass my goal by six weeks without the emotional lift that the significance of November 17th gave me. Any time I felt like taking a break or slowing
down, the thought of my grandfather popped up.
So in a way I guilted myself into pushing harder … If I didn’t launch by November 17th, I would have felt like I let him down.
When you’re picking a deadline for a goal or project that you want to complete, pay close attention to the date that you choose. Is there a special date that will do double duty: motivate you to finish what you want to do, while also bumping up
the original date that you were planning?
It could be the anniversary of the death of a loved one …
Maybe it’s the birthday of your spouse or your child, and it reminds you why you’re busting your ass to do what you’re doing …
Or maybe you’re a big fan of Elvis and you choose January 8th, his birthday, as your deadline (long live the King!).
Tie
your deadline in with emotion, and you become UNSTOPPABLE!
Marc