{"id":607,"date":"2018-08-01T22:31:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T02:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/?p=607"},"modified":"2018-08-03T16:01:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T20:01:15","slug":"day-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/08\/01\/day-34\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 34: Norwalk, Ohio to Cuyahoga Falls (Aug. 1, 2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I checked into a hotel in Ann Arbor, Michigan.\u00a0 The desk clerk smiled and asked how far I had traveled.\u00a0 I said over 2,00 miles from Seattle, Washington.\u00a0 His reply was\u00a0 similar to one I had heard from several other people.\u00a0 He said the trip sounded fascinating but if he tried doing it he would have stopped after about a dozen miles and given up.<\/p>\n

To be honest the thought of giving up crossed my mind a couple of times this trip, especially around Missoula, Montana when my legs were like jello.\u00a0 What prevented me from giving up was you.<\/p>\n

I learned from behavioral economics that one simple method of accomplishing a major task is to make a public commitment with verification.\u00a0 The major task doesn’t have to be cycling across the country.\u00a0 It can be as simple as losing ten or twenty pounds of weight.<\/p>\n

How did you prevent me from giving up?\u00a0 I made a public commitment by creating this blog.\u00a0 Forcing myself each night to write about the trip ensures each day I remember that a lot of people were told I was going to complete the trip.\u00a0 Dropping out in the Rocky Mountain would mean publicly admitting defeat to a large audience.\u00a0 If I didn’t have the blog then quitting would have been relatively easy since no one would have known.<\/p>\n

Verification is important, too.\u00a0 On the side of the blog is a widget or box that contains information from Strava.\u00a0 Strava is an app on my phone that every 30 seconds tracks where I am.\u00a0 Strava uses this to calculate my speed, distance and height climbed.\u00a0 By keeping Strava on all the time I cannot cheat and call Uber, Lyft or a taxi without a reader noticing.<\/p>\n

What is the takeaway?\u00a0 If you want to do something relatively large then what you need to do is first make a public commitment.\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be a blog.\u00a0 Any kind of public commitment works.\u00a0 Getting up during a family dinner and telling everyone your plan is just as good as tweeting to the entire world.<\/p>\n

Then you also need to follow through by ensuring there is some way for people to monitor or watch what you are doing.\u00a0 For example there is a television show that tracks obese people trying to lose weight.\u00a0 They periodically bring contestants in to be weighed.\u00a0 That is an example of monitoring.<\/p>\n

Looking at the above paragraphs it all seems so simple. In reality, doing any large project or task is not simple even with the help of behavioral economics plus supportive friends and relatives.<\/p>\n

+++++++++<\/p>\n

Today, my son and I pedaled from Norwalk, Ohio to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.\u00a0 The morning was relatively easy.\u00a0 We spent much of the time on the same bike trail as yesterday.\u00a0 We saw amusing things like a giant US flag made out of empty beer cans and a giant bird statue.<\/p>\n

We ended the morning in Oberlin, Ohio and had some excellent burrito bowls for lunch at a restaurant that looked at the town’s park.\u00a0 Before leaving Oberlin we stopped at the location where the process for creating aluminum was invented.\u00a0 The inventor patented his process and went on to create Alcoa.<\/p>\n

After lunch the beautiful roads and rail trails started to disappear.\u00a0 Hills started reappearing as we got closer to Cleveland.\u00a0 Traffic also became heavier as we went through the suburbs of Cleveland.<\/p>\n