Falling behind vs. streaks
The culture punishes people by reminding us that we’re falling behind. The camera focuses on the person who is winning the race instead of the one who is trying harder than ever before. The bank sends the dunning notice to the person behind on their rent and the lousy grades go to the student who hands in a paper a day late.
Fear of falling behind is a good way to enforce compliance.
But it turns out that real progress comes not from measuring ourselves against everyone else’s pace, but in building habits. And habits come from streaks.
You’re almost certainly never going to win a 26-mile marathon, but if you train every day, you’ll finish one.
In building the Akimbo workshops (like The Marketing Seminar, which is open for enrollment right now), we’re committed to creating a learning system where you don’t have to feel like you’re falling behind–at the very same time we’re making it likely that you’ll embrace the posture of seeking a streak. Show up every day. Do the work, return tomorrow.
Drip by drip, day by day. Habits lead to commitments and commitments create learning.
A culture of streaks can’t help but be mutually supportive. If there’s no behind, then there’s no ahead. But if we’re supporting each other in building new habits, we discover that opening the door for someone else also benefits us as well.