“To accomplish a difficult task one must first make it easy.”
– Marty Rubin, Canadian Author
I wasn’t sure what to write for today’s blog, but the quote above immediately inspired me to think about the huge tasks I’ve had on my plate lately and how I should be handling them. I have a couple of large client projects I’m working on, and my mind is constantly telling me how enormous and impossible they are and how I won’t do a good enough job on them. Does that happen to you, too?
You’ve probably heard, as I have, that we need to break these huge projects into bite-size chunks. This is a key productivity secret that I teach my clients as well. However, we aren’t usually told why this is effective, so I want to share that with you. The two primary reasons we break the project down into individual, easy-to-achieve steps are:
1. To create a map of where we’re going and how to get there.
2. To give ourselves more opportunities to celebrate along the way!
When we can say “I will get these 2 steps done in the project” instead of the generic, unattainable “I will work on the [enormous, hairy, scary] project,” we give ourselves the chance to succeed. You can get those 2 steps done, and you will have made progress on the project rather than freezing or avoiding it. And by doing this over and over every day, you teach your brain that you are a success because you’re getting the steps done. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are as long as they move you forward and you celebrate that progress.
Although I’m writing this for you, I’m reminding myself of what needs to be done as well. I’ve been in that frozen, avoidance mode, and it’s time to break my projects into even smaller, simpler steps. Even though I had it broken down and on my calendar, the steps weren’t easy enough.
What project will you break down today so you can build yourself up?
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