Eat That Frog! Part 1 of 9: Introduction
October 14, 2009 by dr. lam
I would like to thank St. Clair Newbern IV, who is in my business EO forum group, for his recommendation of reading Eat That Frog! Every month, each member of my forum group presents a best business/personal pearl, and St. Clair’s was to read this book, which I have done. It has changed the way that I organize my daily routine and how I attack problems now. For that, I am grateful.
Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog! derives its title from Mark Twain’s saying that if we eat a live frog every day, that would be the worst thing that we would do that day and everything afterward will be by comparison easier. I think most of us leave our frogs on the table and keep bumping it until the next day because we simply do not want to address that task, which allows procrastination to dominate our lives a little at a time. I am certainly guilty of that as well.
If we have two ugly frogs, we tend to pick the lesser of the two frogs and bite that one first, leaving the bad frog on the table. Tracy encourages us to eat the uglier frog first. When we do that, we feel a sense of “Ahhhh” for the rest of the day, which provides fortitude of spirit, confidence, and unleashes a cascade of pleasurable endorphins. We can literally become addicted to our productivity, as the positive reinforcement goes deeper into our emotional well being as much as it does just by the fact that a certain task has been accomplished.
Tracy encourages all of us to take action immediately. Just by starting we can then progress a little at a time to accomplish our intended goals. Without having any goals, we wander around in the desert. We must start by outlining those goals and as we have talked about in our series on Maxwell Maltz we must visualize where we want to be not where we do not want to be. If we see ourselves as productive, then we can actually accomplish more. When we append words to ourselves like lazy, stupid, etc., we live our own limitations and nothing gets accomplished. We must see and believe where we want to be. He says we need 3 D’s: decision (to do it), discipline (to incorporate that action), and determination (not to stop until it becomes a habit and task is done).
This series of blogs will be focused on how we can Eat that Frog! on a daily basis so that these productivity habits can be firmly ensconced into our daily ritual, all of which can be pleasantly reinforced by how good we feel that the frog has already been eaten and we can move on with more pleasant assignments. I hope you join me, as we venture forth to eat that frog!
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4 Responses to “Eat That Frog! Part 1 of 9: Introduction”
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Haha! That’s it! lol I remember now!! This is SO for me!!! Off to eat my first frog! (exercise!!) Whoohoo! I LOVE your blogs, Dr. Lam!!! You ROCK, you know that!!! Oh, yes, you already know that…lol
cool. enjoy!
good point!