Happy June friends! It is feeling crazy to me that we are into the summer season, yet when I really think about it in our world we have done a lot of living in the past few months so maybe it isn’t so crazy after all. We have rode the waves of new jobs, surgery, medical highs and lows, said good bye to family who moved, welcomed new family members – it has been pretty crazy actually! And as a person who enjoys partaking in life (aka has a hard time ever slowing down or saying no) – yet thrives in structure, it has been a bit of challenge since no week seems to look same. But what it has really developed is a sense of being productive, even when things are a little all over the place. So today I am sharing one of the most common phrases rolling around my brain daily: eat the frog first.
I don’t know about you guys, but I can be a bit of an over analyzer, a worry wart, and even sorta obsessive. In some ways these qualities have brought me good things: creatively I am gaining inspiration all the time and I tend to have a crazy good memory for detaisl. But when I have something weighing on my mind …. I think I might let it pull on my attention just a little too hard. A way around that distraction is to get that task out of the way- so the thing your dreading – just get it done. Eat the frog first!
Being in new situations there can be a lot of things you don’t know how to do. This can sometimes mean you will gravitate towards the aspects you feel comfortable with. But it’s like that quote: “ if you want something you have never had, you need to do something you have never done.” It’s just the “doing” part that is sorta hard…. and whether it’s human nature or just my perfectionist side waiting for the exact right moment when you know you can give 150% attention to something – but either way I can find a bunch of excuses to put things off. So I started telling myself do the thing you fear first and the rest will follow.
The funny thing is once I really started implementing it at work – I realized how munch mental energy and space it returned to my life. Plus I gained the confidence from learning I could face my fear of not being perfect and the strength from accomplishment. But maybe best of all…. I realized that it often wasn’t as hard or take up as much time as I had expected. And that is how eating the frog first became a mantra all the time.
At home that inbox of paperwork, that last load of laundry, that closet to organize…. of course I want my Saturday morning to be about reading and coffee. But when I add in that to do item first, suddenly that coffee and new book are even more enjoyable in the afternoon with a clean kitchen table. I ate the frog! It has been awesome and as much as I am an a-type…. I can admit tasks I have been putting off for months are DONE!
So I thought since eating all these frogs first has made such a big difference in my world…. I would share the wisdom with you guys! Here’s to the frogs and eating them first.
Thank you so much for reading and remember to make it a great day!
Jackie
Have A Little Faith in We 