We’ve all heard the saying
But why an elephant though? Who would actually want to eat an elephant? But I guess that is the point of the quote. It is such an outlandish idea that it actually sticks. This is the same thing with some of the goals we have for the new year (btw when do we stop calling it “The New Year” and just call it “The Year”?).
Some of us have ambitious goals that we want to accomplish this year, so ambitious that to other people it sounds ridiculous and pretty much impossible. So when you share it, people respond with:
“Are you sure?”
“Is that even possible?”
“Why would you even try for such a thing?”
“You are wasting your time, just stop now”
Some of those goals could be:
Get finances in order
Retirement
paying off student loans
saving for a house
moving to a new city
changing careers
starting a business
Promotion at work
The specific goal does not really matter. What matters is at the beginning it feels impossible, it feels like an ELEPHANT. So big you cannot even see the full picture. There are generally two ways we react when we realize how big our goals actually are:
We get SUPERCHARGED and basically try to run through brick walls.
Usually, this is due to the questions we get from others. We enter the “I will show everyone” mode
We get afraid and self-doubt creeps in
We go into “What If” Mode
Both reactions are problematic because they do not deal in reality but rather fantasy.
SUPERCHARGERS
Those of us who start something new EVERY YEAR. Those of us who start off the year full of energy and ready to take on the world. But for some reason, when our friends ask us how things are going right around April, May, or June. We reply with “Well you know.” By October, we cannot even remember the things we were trying to accomplish at the beginning of the year anymore. (Speaking from experience on this one).
The problem with us, SUPERCHARGERS, is we want to eat the ENTIRE ELEPHANT in one go. We believe that if we just keep going as hard as possible for as long as possible, we will eventually make a breakthrough. The problem with this is we never give room for REST and REFLECTION. We do not even know if what we are doing is actually working, we just keep pressing onward hoping we are making headway. This tends to lead to the burnout that you see from high-intensity, high-energy folks.
The problem is people like us enjoy the sprint nature of chasing goals. However, ambitious goals are almost always a MARATHON. So then how we do solve this problem?
Simple. How do we eat an elephant?
Build out Sprint Targets within your Marathon goals. This way you have markers along the way to tell you if you are on-target or off-target of accomplishing your ambitious goals. This will also provide a forced time of REST and REFLECTION. Something Superchargers SUCK at.
SELF-DOUBTERS
These are folks who are usually looking for the silver bullet to alleviate all their fears. These are folks that are meticulous planners, they need to know all the details. The problem they face is this is the real world, not a video game. So things never play out in a choreographed step-by-step manner. Because of this, they doubt themselves paralyzed by the questions of “What if…” and never get started moving towards their goals.
The solution for self-doubt is once again the question: How do you eat an elephant?
Sometimes all we can do is take that first messy step. Where nothing makes sense and we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into. Eating an elephant cannot be a clean endeavor. Just think about how much it would take to get a piece out of that elephant? Where do you even start the front, the back, the sides?
The answer is it doesn’t matter! Once you take the first cut, you’ll figure out if it was the right spot or not, and then you can regroup.
Self-doubters unlike Superchargers are built for a marathon because all you want to do is reflect so markers are naturally built into your plans. However, too much reflection gives no room for action. Self-doubters have to embrace the messiness of life. Give room for failures and learn from those failures.
For both groups of people, DISCIPLINE will be needed.
For SuperChargers, discipline to not overdo things and to actually rest and reflect. But also discipline to FINISH
For Self-Doubters, discipline to BEGIN and to show up regardless of success or failure.
I WISH EVERYONE ALL THE BEST IN THE YEAR 2022.
Thank you for reading.🙏🏾
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