Most of us have heard the very best way to tackle those daunting tasks that are looming over our heads! We ask ourselves, “How do you eat an elephant?!” And the answer is…
ONE. TEENY. TINY. BITE. AT. A. TIME!
Elephants aren’t small, and some of our tasks aren’t either. In fact, SOME are down right intimidating and overwhelming. Am I the only one that has taken one look at a task and decided to hit the road and not ever look back? My product room for my business right now is….well? Let’s just say, a huge disaster. I started organizing it prior to my total knee replacement and the floor is covered almost every square inch! There’s barely room to walk… I’ve always been one that overwhelms easily. And my struggle with ADD is a REAL thing! I dive into a project and there they are…a hundred angry eyes glaring back at me intimidatingly as if to say, YOU’D BETTER BE OVERWHELMED! Then I cower in the corner and feel worse than I did the day before because my tasks do not magically disappear.
When my mom passed away suddenly we had to drive fourteen hours from New Mexico to Nebraska to clean out her house. Most of the things we brought back went into our garage. I had intended on going through it all fairly quickly, but grieving and depression is the real deal and it wasn’t the order of the day. Depression and Grief took center stage. The more I procrastinated, the bigger the pile in our garage became. Our garage also became a catch all for storage and everything else. As the mountain grew, so did the overwhelming feelings, with lots and lots of tears. And guilt. And shame.
Suddenly I determined to conquer the world, (AKA-my garage). I donned my hard hat, put on my gloves, and hit that garage in break neck speed with a stiff upper lip. I’d start going through one box and then another. After a few days, the “D” word would show up: DISCOURAGEMENT! My lip would start to quiver, I’d quit, and the cycle would continue. Back to the hamster wheel. Going around and around and around. The definition of Insanity they say is, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result! What a great analogy for this stuff. TOTAL INSANITY WITH TONS OF FEAR, GUILT, SHAME AND THE WEARINESS,…OH, THE WEARINESS! You get the picture. It’s a sucky place to be. And few people escape it, except for the neat freaks/ minimalists that throw everything, and I mean-EVERYTHING, away. Even the good stuff. (That’s another story).
The good news is I’ve been eating an elephant one bite at a time for what seems like an eternity! It’s just easier that way. The elephant concept works, or trust me, I wouldn’t be serving it to you. And it works with virtually everything.
So…what daunting task are you facing that you know you need to do? What are you putting off because the mountain is the size of Mount Everest and you cower every time you look at it?
Spend fifteen, thirty, forty-five minutes to an hour every day or even two-three times a week, working on whatever it is. Set the timer. When that timer goes off, STOP, drop and roll, or just stand there and do the HAPPY DANCE. Pat yourself on the back. Applaud yourself for what you’ve accomplished. YOU DID IT. You ate a bite of the elephant…Before you know it, you will have had an Elephant Smorgasbord, and your mountains will become mole hills. You’ll walk around as light as air. You just might have to take to the sky SOARING! Yes, Life…CAN BE GOOD. It’s all a matter of how we approach it. And the elephant thing? It works.
