Eat That Frog: Brian Tracy Explains The Truth About Frogs

 Time Management  Time Management

Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long. Your “frog” is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.

If You Have To Eat Two Frogs, Eat The Ugliest One First

This is another way of saying that if you have two important tasks before you, start with the biggest, hardest, and most important task first. Discipline yourself to begin immediately and then to persist until the task is complete before you go on to something else.

If You Have To Eat A Live Frog At All, It Doesn’t Pay To Sit And Look At It For Very Long

The key to reaching high levels of performance and productivity is to develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning. You must develop the routine of “eating your frog” before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it.

This habit is well-adopted by among successful people, so much so that I consider it an essential leadership quality for any CEO who intends to accomplish great things.

Take Action Immediately

Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete.

“Failure to execute” is one of the biggest problems in organizations today. Many people confuse activity with accomplishment. They talk continually, hold endless meetings, and make wonderful plans, but in the final analysis, no one does the job and gets the results required.

For example, if you have ever dreamt of becoming a published author to advance your career, grow your business, or to improve the lives of others, none of those things will happen until you change your desire from a dream to a goal. Even at that point, you still need to take action immediately.

Your dream and all of those potential benefits will not do anyone any good until you take action on your thoughts, set the goal, and learn how to write a book. The same is true with all of the other wonderful ideas that pop into your mind, so be sure to act quickly on such intuition, and start with whichever task will help you be the most productive.

Develop A Positive Addiction

You can actually develop a “positive addiction” to endorphins and to the feeling of enhanced clarity, confidence, and competence that they trigger.

When you develop this addiction, you will, at an unconscious level, begin to organize your life in such a way that you are continually starting and completing ever more important tasks and projects. You will actually become addicted, in a very positive sense, to success and contribution.

Setting short and long-term SMART goals will help you experience this “hooked” feeling as the satisfaction of accomplishing each task triggers the brain’s reward and pleasure system.

No Shortcuts

Practice is the key to mastering any skill. Fortunately, your mind is like a muscle. It grows stronger and more capable with use. With practice, you can learn any behavior or develop any habit that you consider either desirable or necessary.

What is your “frog?” What is the one task that you despise doing each day? Once you have chosen your “frog” make it a habit to wake up every morning and do that task first.

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