Not to long ago I signed up for a 9 week course that a friend of mine was putting on. I had all the best intentions to download the course and follow along…but I didn’t. Over the weekend I finally finished downloading all the materials …and…then nothing. I got sidetracked again.

I realized this wasn’t the first time for me. I did the same thing with Mark Joyner’s Simpleology. I also never finished listening to all the CDs from Nido Quebin (they got kind of boring so that’s my story on that one.) And I’m sure there are a few more somewhere that got started and never finished. And its not like this is a $25 book I buy from Barnes & Nobles on a whim that never gets read. These programs can be quite a chunk of change!

And then it occurred to me.

This is what happens to 90% of people who invest in some kind of self-study or virtual learning. We invest with all the right intentions but then we get busy with life and forget to follow through. 17 binders of information products later, they sit, stacked on a shelf or in boxes in a corner of our office, waiting for that day when we actually have time to do something with it.

The funniest story I ever heard was from a woman who had invested in my Virtual Team Building program. She was feeling “buyers remorse” with yet another purchase. She explained that she had invested in over $20k worth of programs in the last 2 years and recently just put them all on ebay and sold them. After helping her see some ways to break that pattern by actually implementing our program…she agreed not to put mine on ebay. =-)

Why do people invest in programs they never use? What is this compulsion we have to learn more stuff? What keeps people from following through on their commitments in an online program?

What I realized is that most self study type programs are not designed to keep people engaged. When you consider the avalanche of emails that we receive daily to the constant fires that we encounter that must be handled immediately, spending time on a self guided program tends to fall by the way side.

So what can you do as a participant to keep yourself engaged so you actually get a good return on your investment? Here are 4 insights I discovered by running my own experiment:

1. Get reconnected to the why. Why did you originally invest in it? What was the problem you wanted solved? I’m sure that didn’t go away magically.
2. Create a schedule to complete the program. If you paid $10k for an MBA would you not go to class? Well, if you went to San Diego State you might not but that’s not the point. Treat it like a class you have to attend live every week in order to “pass” and you’ll create a stronger connection to completing it.
3. Set up accountability. Too often the program shows up in the mail but there is no guidance or support for it. Get a business or success coach to hold you accountable or get a buddy to support you with weekly commitments. One of the ways we support our clients is we include a membership in our coaching community so they can get access to live support.
4. Delegate it. Just because you bought it doesn’t mean you have to learn it. I’ve given members of my team different programs that I want them to learn. If they are responsible for the strategy they might as well benefit from your investment too.

The most important thing is to not let too much time go by. The more time that passes the less painful the cost of not completing it. Its too easy to forget that you wasted that money. MAs the Nike commerical says, “Just do it!” Get going. Take yourself to coffee for an hour and just start the program. You’ll be glad you did later.