Whether you are dieting, quitting smoking or trying to write in your blog everyday, it is important to start with a plan.

When making that plan, don’t forget to include positive self-talk at least every hour such as, “You got this!  You can do it!”  I have a friend that says, “Fake it till you make it,” or as Kenneth on 30 Rock told Jack when Jack asked him how he could be so happy all the time, “I lie to myself every morning when I get up.”  I started doing that and found that the lie I thought I was telling myself became the truth.  It was actually the truth all along, I just didn’t believe it.

Another ingredient for success is to not let a slip up totally derail you.  For instance, if your goal was to write in your blog everyday and you missed like the twenty-eighth day, don’t let it get you down.  Get right back up on that horse again and keep riding.  Or smoking, say you got a puff from a co-worker at lunch so you thought, what the heck, I might as well go get a pack, no, no, no!  Please don’t.  Learn from your mistake and resolve to do better next time.  Give yourself a next time to do better by staying on that horse.

Funny thing is, that’s not what I was going to write when I started.  I guess someone out there needed to hear this.  Possible me.