90 Day Life Sprints
In December 2022, I hesitantly agreed to do a celebrity dance competition (Seattle Dances) to raise money for Plymouth Housing, a local nonprofit. These three words threw me from the get go: Celebrity + Dance + Competition. What? I am flying way out of my comfort zone here. There is no way I have the time to train for and raise the money to succeed. I was ready to politely decline but asked some friends what they thought before putting a nail in this idea and moving on. “You should totally do it!” they said. “It’s a no brainer. You only live once.” “Really?”, I thought. Maybe they are right. They see something in me that I don’t see. Okay then, I’m going to live into this and just close my eyes and go for it. I leapt.
In March 2023, surrounded by a crowd of over 500 people, I danced my heart out, Indian hip hop style (Bhangra) and we raised over $1.6 million. It was a smashing success. And it got me wondering. If I could go from hesitating to stretching my comfort zone to gala level performance in 90 days, what else could I do in 90 days? Maybe there is a formula here that I could apply to other endeavors that would keep me learning and curious, inspired and uncomfortable. I started thinking about this idea of “Life Sprints”.
“ If I could go from hesitating to stretching my comfort zone to gala level performance in 90 days, what else could I do in 90 days?”
We know about sprints in business or certainly in product development. It is a period of time when you commit resources to accomplish very specific tasks and outcomes. But what if we applied the sprint concept to life design?
Welcome to the 90 Day Life Sprint
The idea of a life sprint is intentionally not supposed to be directly work related. It is designed to accelerate other areas of importance and interest in your life. These are built to stretch you out of your comfort zone, to try something new or uplevel something you already know in a focused and deliberate way. Here are the ingredients to build a successful life sprint:
Choose your why
Create an accountability commitment
Have a clear milestone
Architect a “reveal” to a group
Learn and iterate
Choose Your Why:
Plymouth Housing provides permanent housing for those facing chronic homelessness. That’s a pretty compelling why. It doesn’t always have to be that benevolent. What do you want to accomplish? Why does it matter to you? Is it bigger than you? Make it meaningful. That will help carry you through those moments when you invariably lose a bit of motivation.
Create an Accountability Commitment:
Would I practice dancing bhangra so much if I didn’t have to go to coaching practice 2x/week? Probably not. Knowing that I had someone who was pushing me and expecting me to get my work done made it easier to stay on task. If you take an online course, as an example, but no one cares if you make the class or not, that’s going to be hard to maintain.
Have Clear Milestones:
What does success look like? For Seattle Dances, I knew the milestone was a big gala. That made for a pretty clear line of sight on success. But it’s not always going to be that clear. Set a milestone for where you are going to celebrate a success. Make it very real and tangible. It could be a song you want to write or a product you want to create or a garden you want to plant. Envision what it looks like when you have won the game.
Architect a “Reveal” to a Group:
You don’t need to have a 500-person gala event as your audience but it does help to know that others are expecting your successful completion. Without a reveal component of the process, it is too easy to limp along. But if you knew that people were expecting you to nail it, it’s likely you’d race through the finish. Consider sharing your intention publicly before you have done it.
Learn and Iterate:
This might be the most important step. What went well? What didn’t go well? What will you incorporate into the next sprint? How can you continue honing your structure and methodology so the muscle you are exercising around life sprints gets stronger over time.
If you’re missing any one of these ingredients, it will be hard to execute a 90-day life sprint. So before you go off and start executing, ask yourself the following questions:
Am I clear on why I’m doing this?
Do I have a measure of accountability?
Have I defined what my milestone(s) are?
Do I have people that are expecting me to complete it?
Without all of these working in harmony, the sprint can easily get off the rails. But over time, I’m confident you can build a habit of success in life sprint planning.
So consider a 90 day life sprint plan. Please share with me a life sprint you’re interested in pursuing and put it out in the universe today. You’re already more likely to make it happen.