This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…….

Personal Productivity – Part II

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Last week we spoke about getting our High Payoff Activities done first – getting these Big Rocks in the bucket first – before the gravel, sand and water.

But there’s a subtlety.

We may have 4 or 5 High Payoff Activities that deliver our goals. Maybe we do lots of number 1 and 2 because we like doing them. Then we do a bit less of number 3 because we’re not so keen on it. We do very little of number 4. And as for number 5 – we really don’t like doing that, we feel uncomfortable doing it and we’re convinced we’re no good at it anyway.

If we fill our bucket with only half the things we need to do we have chosen to limit our potential. Our engine is running all the time which is good but we’re firing on two cylinders instead of four.
And what is it really about the things we don’t like. Will they kill us? Will they humiliate us? Are they really so bad? Or is it just that we’re not comfortable? We feel a bit of discomfort so we stay in our comfort zone? Because it’s easy.

Well here’s a thing – if we stray outside our comfort zone our comfort zone catches us up. It comes after us and envelopes us and we are back in our comfort zone but it’s bigger and we are now doing all the things we have to do to be as successful as we want to be.

The key is action. As an example, if we hate making telephone calls we should make 5 every day and do them first thing in the morning. Regular and often. Regular and often. Frequency and repetition are critical.

If we have to eat a frog, we do it first thing. Don’t procrastinate. At best we’ll eat the frog last thing and then all that’s happened is that we’ve fretted all day. At worst we don’t eat the frog and go home, defeated. And tomorrow the frog’s still there, on our desk, sitting beside a new frog. Now we have two frogs to eat.

Little and often is habit forming. In time, days and weeks not months, we will have new habits, a bigger comfort zone, less fear and more success.

Eat the frog!

Next week…..

Motivation – the fuel in our tank. Do we have enough of the right kind of motivation or have we put diesel in our Ferrari?