Back to Lightbulb Moments

Creative Mental Accounting

Avoid streak devastation by using creative mental accounting. Treat each day as a fresh chance to succeed, regardless of past outcomes.

24. Juli 2022

You basically treat each day like its very own account.

You forget how you performed yesterday.

Failure OR Success before is actually irrelevant.

If you succeed today, congratulate yourself. You earn something.

If you fail today, you get another fresh chance tomorrow!

Here’s a Pro Tip:

You can go crazier by playing with the units of time. Day is just one type of unit.

Why not try half-days?

If your goal is to eat healthily and you ate badly in the morning, does that mean that the whole day is lost? No, if your mental accounting works in half-day units. You get a fresh chance to be healthy and clean from 12pm to midnight.

Why not try hours?

If your goal is to be more mindful and emotionally controlled throughout the day in every single meeting you have, does that mean you failed when you did badly in one meeting in the afternoon? No, if your mental accounting works in hour units. You get a fresh chance to be mindful and controlled with every starting hour. A good starting goal could be to collect more positive than negative hours on a day.

You see, there are so many ways to play with it!

I hope I gave you something to think and ponder about!

What creative mental accounting can you come up with, Maik, to help you maintain positive, daily habits?

Maik

John Maxwell:

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily” (Maik: or hourly, half-daily, weekly:))