One famous piece of time management and procrastination-busting advice is to ‘Eat that frog’. In other words get the most important and unpalatable job done first.
Sound advice but not very motivating to my mind.
Actually, I find the metaphor quite revolting. (I know the well travelled, adventurous gourmets among you will think, ‘But frog is lovely cooked. Just like chicken.’ But I can’t help thinking of the live, cold slimy variety :))
Anyway… it got me thinking….what would be a more motivating, procrastination-busting metaphor?
What if it was ‘Eat that bar of Green and Black’s milk chocolate’ or ‘eat that Byron’s real veggie burger’ or whatever your favourite food is?
My idea is… think of that unappetising task as an appetising one.
How would that work then?
Let’s take an example. One of the things my business development and career development clients find difficult and like to put off is marketing and selling what they do. In their minds, marketing and selling activities are difficult to swallow because they associate them with ‘arrogance’, ‘pushiness’, ‘aggressiveness’ and ‘difficulty’. They hate blowing their own trumpet.
When they change how they think about this, pretty soon they create their marketing copy, their CVs and their LinkedIn profiles and I can get on with helping them with the editing.
So what are some of the new and motivating ways they think about the task of promoting themselves? Here are 5 ideas. If they’re:
- altruistic, they focus on the task being all about letting people know they’re here to help or how much their increased salary or profits will allow them to give to charity or provide opportunities for their children
- value excellence, they tell themselves that self-promotion will allow them to invest more in their continuing professional development through coaching and training so they can be even better at what they do
- materialistic, they focus on the increased profits or salary they’ll get and all the lovely things they’ll be able to buy – homes, cars etc
- motivated by guilt, they associate not promoting themselves with depriving people of the opportunity of working with them …that is…someone who can really help them and who cares about them
- fun loving, they think about how much fun they can have with the extra profits or salary…such as holidays and other experiences
You get the picture…it’s all about understanding what motivates you…and keep the end in mind.
Your mission, today, should you choose to accept, is to transform your thinking about a task that is important and that you’ve been procrastinating about into a task you feel really motivated to do. Stop trying to eat that frog and start eating that…?
I’d love to know how you get on and if you have other ways you stop yourself procrastinating. Feel free to leave a comment in the comment box below.
Want to discover more?
1-2-1 Complimentary Coaching Discovery Session
If you could stop procrastinating and change one thing in your personal, career or business life, what would it be? I have 2 complimentary spaces for 1-2-1 Discovery Sessions this month. During that session, we’ll discuss where you are in your business, career or personal life. We’ll uncover hidden barriers to your success. We’ll get clear on how you’d like your life to be. Then I’ll show you how you can stop procrastinating and bridge that gap. You’ll go away feeling positive, excited and certain about your next steps.
If you would like to apply for a session, just email me: madeleine@growu.co.uk