Chip Away

Get Started!  It’s pretty obvious, but without action there is no achievement.  If you want something to happen, you have to put in the work to make it happen.  The problem is, it’s often really hard to get started.  It is super easy to convince ourselves that a task is too hard or too daunting to start now.  There are always a million reasons to start tomorrow.

They key is to ignore the reasons not to start and to just take action.  Most of the outcomes we want are not the results of one action, but the result of many sustained small actions.  I was with a great friend from college today, and I remembered an important lesson I learned from him back then.  He was a good student and a hard worker.  But, what I learned from watching him was the value of constantly moving forward.  He always used to “chip away” at his work.  It was my natural style to get work done in big chunks.  If I didn’t have a 3 hour window, I wouldn’t sit down to start a project.  I learned from him the benefit of sustained perpetual action.  If he had 15 free minutes, he would sit down and knock out a little work.  He repeated this cycle throughout the week, and little by little he got all of his work done without ever needing to stress.  I, on the other hand, was king of the last minute all-nighter.  Fortunately, I have learned over the years to drop this painful habit.

Work is obviously a little different than school.  At work, we don’t really have too much of a choice to not get the work done or to procrastinate.  We all come in and work hard every day.  Where this theory comes into the play is when you need to work on the big, game changing stuff.  There are always projects that could improve service, or make things more efficient if only we could take the time to make them happen.  With these projects, the same thing applies: chip away.  You will never find time to sit down and write descriptions for all 50 beers on a beer menu.  But, I know you could sit down and write great descriptions of 2 beers every day for the next 4 weeks.

There is a Stanford psychologist named BJ Fogg, who writes and talks about “tiny habits.”  His research has shown that the best way to create habits is to break tasks down into very manageable chunks.  He talks about flossing one tooth.  It is hard to find the motivation to floss.  But, in his example, it’s not such a big deal to floss one tooth every time you brush your teeth.  You can see a speech where he outlines this theory here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKUJxjn-R8

Lastly, some of you might have heard me say, “build a statue.”  The process of sculpting a statue is literally chipping away at a piece of rock tens of thousands of times.  It is pretty mind boggling to realize the collective power of these small actions when you see something as beautiful a Bernini statue.

This week pick something you want to get done and get started.  Don’t look for a reason not to start, and don’t worry about how hard it will be to finish.  Get started chipping away, and before you know it you’ll be done and onto the next big rock.  Have a great week!