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Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this before—I hadn’t either until I started paying attention to how I was actually spending my time. Or really, how I wanted to be spending it. Now that I get it—I can honestly tell you, I am ALL IN! The phrase “eat the frog” is widely attributed to versions of a quote by Mark Twain, who supposedly said something like this: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Ew! But ok! Brian Tracy popularized this in his book Eat That Frog! (2001), where he uses the frog as a symbol for your biggest, most important, and often most dreaded task. His idea is: If you have to eat a frog today, do it right away. And if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. Obviously, there is an endless amount of information out there explaining the benefits/reasons for adopting this method. For me, it boils down to these three reasons for doing life this way: 1. Mental Clarity: I am fresher in the morning. I can handle things that require a lot of brain power. I’m less fatigued, less prone to distractions. Getting the hard thing out of the way creates clarity for smaller, easier tasks throughout the day. 2. Momentum: Builds a sense of accomplishment to carry me through a more productive day. Exercises my muscle for discipline, strengthening my willpower to start with the heavy lifting more frequently, more readily, more automatically, more easily, without too much resistance. Trains me to focus on high impact work, not be reactive to small stuff. 3. Neutralize the Avoidance trap: Chronic procrastination becomes a thing of the past. Freed from the weight of the burdens, the hovering tasks, the haunting and daunting thoughts draining my energy, Giving the hard stuff the shortest lifespan—no ownership over me, no space in my head, my day, or my life. Choosing to eat the frog is a decision, an intentional action. Sometimes I can’t even believe I try to do this! That I actually DO this! That I AM a person who does this! And let me tell you, it’s not that difficult! We know that it’s harder to AVOID the things we must do, than it is to just do them. Duhhhh…so simple, but seriously think about THAT for a minute! Kicking the proverbial “can” down the road wastes more energy. Period. It’s that simple. TIP: Habit-stack a reward for immediately after. I often think to myself, once I finish X (the hardest thing), I will reward myself with Y (a favorite podcast, a coffee, a walk, a call to a friend). . We make our lives so much harder when we sidestep the difficulties. Have the courage to attack ALL things head-on: crush them, pulverize them, eclipse them—burn the resistance! In the end, it’s always a better way to go, and it’s certainly worth trying to see for yourself! So let’s work up our appetites for some serious frog eating, shall we? Get ourselves super focused, locked in each morning—ready to pounce, get ‘er done, make it happen, make it count, monkey off our back, stand tall, be brave, be bold! The frogs will always be taunting—so let’s EAT! See how it changes our lives. |