Eat the Frog

I’m an extremely dedicated, hard-working, and consistent person. But priorities?

They’re nowhere near the same thing.

I’ve been working with Nicoline Huizinga recently and she talked about eating the frog.

I hadn’t heard the phrase so I looked it up and sure enough, yeah, I don’t always do that so well.

As Mark Twain once said “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

— Stefano at Noisli

But then this morning, I saw a heron (a reiger in Dutch) with a frog in its mouth.

Do you ever get those messages in life that come across as clear as day?

1. Nicoline (indirectly) reminds me to “eat the frog” and take care of the big stuff early in the day.
2. This huge bird has a live frog in its mouth this morning.

2020 is about focus.

Prioritizing, narrowing down, niching into my sweet spot.

Nicoline knows I need to do it. The heron reminds me I need to do it.

Here are a few screenshots of my morning. I’ll explain it below.

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I have no issue with “big ideas.” I’m also not exactly lacking on the production front. I’m a creator. I start lots of projects. But…

I need to finalize the ideas into production.

Now I have deadlines for those books. I’m on the hook for several books next year and guess what? I’ll get them done.

But I needed to put them up for pre-order. I needed them to “exist” in my mind but also on my desktop.

That was my frog.

It was ugly.

It was alive.

I ate it.

2020 in Books

Here’s a glimpse at what I’m up to next year:

1. Repossible (Jan 17, 2020)
2. Every Single Day (Oct 17, 2017)
3. Ask (Mar. 17, 2020)
4. Dare (Nov. 17, 2019)
5. Create (May 17, 2020)
6. Decide (Oct. 17, 2018)
7. Meditate (Jul. 17, 2020)
8. Spark (Dec. 17, 2018)
9. Surrender (Sep. 17, 2020)
10. Play (Nov. 17, 2020)
11. Elevate (?)

• Eat That Frog: Brian Tracy Explains The Truth About Frogs If You Have To Eat A Live Frog At All, It Doesn’t Pay To Sit And Look At It For Very Long
• What it Means to Eat the Frog The frog is that one thing you have on your to-do list that you have absolutely no motivation to do and that you’re most likely to procrastinate on. Eating the frog means to just do it, otherwise, the frog will eat you meaning that you’ll end up procrastinating it the whole day. Once that one task is done, the rest of the day will be an easier ride and you will get both momentum and a sense of accomplishment at the beginning of your day.
• Eat the Frogs First – A Guide to Prioritizing Simply put, you want to do the things you need to do but don’t want to do first. This way you’ve done the ‘worst’ thing already and are happier to do the other tasks by comparison.