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a limiting factor. Often a key constraint or limiting factor is the
most important frog you could eat at that moment.
EAT THAT FROG!
Identify your most important goal in life today. What is it?
What one goal, if you achieved it, would have the greatest
positive effect on your life? What one career accom-
plishment would have the greatest positive impact on
your work life?
Once you are clear about your major goal, ask yourself,
"What sets the speed at which I accomplish this goal?
Why don't I have it already? What is it in me that is
holding me back?" Whatever your answers, take action
immediately. Do something. Do anything, but get started.
Take It
One Oil Barrel
at a Time
Persons with comparatively moderate
powers will accomplish much if they
apply themselves wholly and
indefatigably to one thing at a time.
-SAMUEL SMILES
THERE IS AN old saying that "By the yard it's hard; but inch by inch,
anything's a cinch!"
One of the best ways to overcome procrastination is for you to
get your mind off the huge task in front of you and focus on a
single action that you can take. One of the best ways to eat a large
frog is for you to take it one bite at a time.
Confucius wrote, "A journey of a thousand leagues begins with
a single step." This is a great strategy for
67
overcoming procrastination and getting more things done faster.
Many years ago I crossed the heart of the Sahara Desert, the
T'anezrouft, deep in modern-day Algeria. By that time, the desert
had been abandoned by the French for years and the original
refueling stations were empty and shuttered.
The desert was 500 miles across in a single stretch, without
water, food, a blade of grass, or even a fly. It was totally flat, like a
broad, yellow, sand parking lot that stretched to the horizon in all
directions.
More than 1,300 people had perished in the crossing of that
stretch of the Sahara in previous years. Often, drifting sands had
obliterated the track across the desert and the travelers had gotten
lost in the night.
To counter the lack of features in the terrain, the French had
marked the track with black, fifty-fivegallon oil drums, five
kilometers apart, exactly the distance to the horizon, where the
earth curved away as you crossed that flat wasteland.
Because of this, wherever we were in the daytime, we could see
two oil barrels, the one we had just passed and the one five
kilometers ahead. And that was enough.
All we had to do was to steer toward the next oil barrel. As a
result, we were able to cross the biggest desert in the world by
simply taking it "one oil barrel at a time."
In the same way, you can accomplish the biggest task in your
life by disciplining yourself to take it just one step at a time. Your
job is to go as far as you can see. You will then see far enough to go
further.
To accomplish a great task, you must step out in faith and have
complete confidence that your next step will soon become clear to
you. Remember the wonderful advice "Leap-and the net will
appear!"
A great life or a great career is built by performing one task at a
time, quickly and well, and then going on to the next task.
Financial independence is achieved by saving a little money
every single month, year after year. Health and fitness are
accomplished by just eating a little less and exercising a little more,
day after day and month after month.
You can overcome procrastination and accomplish
extraordinary things by just taking the first step, by getting started
toward your goal and by then taking it one step, one oil barrel, at a
time.
EAT THAT FROG!
Select any goal, task, or project in your life where you
have been procrastinating and take just one step toward
accomplishing it immediately. Sometimes, all you need to
do to get started is to sit down and make a list of all the
steps you will need to take to eventually complete the
task.
Then, just start and complete one item on the list, and
then one more, and so on. You will be amazed at what you
eventually accomplish.
_ML. J
Put the Pressure
on Yourself
The first requisite for success is
to apply your physical and mental
energies to one problem incessantly
without growing weary.
-THOMAS EDISON
THE WORLD is full of people who are waiting for someone to come
along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they
could be. The problem is that no one is coming to the rescue.
These people are waiting for a bus on a street where no busses
pass. As a result, if they don't take charge of their lives and put
the pressure on themselves, they can end up waiting forever. And
that is what most people do.
Only about 2 percent of people can work entirely without
supervision. We call these people "leaders." This is the kind of
person you are meant to be.
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Your job is to form the habit of putting the pressure on yourself
and not waiting for someone else to come along and do it for you.
You must choose your own frogs and then make yourself eat them
in their order of importance.
The standards you set for your own work and behavior should
be higher than anyone else could set for you. Make it a game with
yourself to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little
later. Always look for ways to go the extra mile, to do more than
you are paid for.
Your self-esteem, the core of your personality, has been defined
by psychologist Nathaniel Brandon as "your reputation with
yourself." You build up or pull down your reputation with yourself
with everything you do or fail to do. The good news is that you feel
terrific about yourself whenever you push yourself to do your best,
whenever you go beyond where the average person would normally
quit.
Imagine each day that you have just received an emergency
message and that you will have to leave town tomorrow for a
month. If you had to leave town for a month, what would you
absolutely make sure got done before you left? Whatever it is, go to
work on that task right now.
Imagine that you just received an all-expensespaid vacation as a
prize, but you will have to leave tomorrow morning on the vacation
or it will be given
to someone else. What would you be determined to get finished
before you left so that you could take that vacation? Whatever it is,
start on that one job immediately.
Successful people continually put the pressure on themselves to
perform at high levels. Unsuccessful people have to be instructed
and supervised and pressured by others.
One of the great ways for you to overcome procrastination is by
working as though you had only one day to get all your most
important jobs done before you left for a month or went on a
vacation. By putting the pressure on yourself, you accomplish more
and better tasks, faster than ever before. You become a high-
performance, high-achieving personality. You feel terrific about
yourself, and bit by bit, you build up the habit of rapid task
completion that then goes on to serve you all the days of your life.
EAT THAT FROG!
Set deadlines and subdeadlines on every task and
activity. Create your own "forcing system." Raise the bar
on yourself and don't let yourself off the hook. Once
you've set yourself a deadline, stick to it and even try to
beat it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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