We are attracted to the flashy, the amazing, the impossible to achieve. We spend our time fantasizing about the great, but that does not produce success. What ultimately gets to success is doing the simple well. You are already in denial. You do not want to believe that. You want to believe that something great is going to propel you forward and get you to the pinnacle of awesomeness.
Reality is that this desire to seek the great thing out, at expense of the simple tasks, is laziness. Pure, good ol’ laziness. If you skip the simple tasks – you will not succeed. Even if you get lucky and you hit a home run one day, the fact that you are unwilling to do the simple tasks will eventually drag you back to reality.
Do not misunderstand me. We should aim for greatness, that is the whole point of the 365 commitment. However, the spirit of the commitment is to accomplish the important simple things everyday. If you do not do the simple well, you will not have a foundation to build upon. To resurrect a previous analogy that I have used – in order to make the summit, you have to hike on the trail.
Can you do the simple well? What is your challenge right now? What are you the most anxious about achieving? Do you know what the simple things are? Good example – I am stressed out this morning because some things are disorganized for me at home. I could sit here and worry about what I want it to be like – or I can just do the simple things, and keep doing them everyday. All those bills stacked up over there – well – I guess I could just pay them? I could figure out a way to reduce the amount of time I spend paying bills. I know I can, I just have not put the time into it. Well maybe today is the day I solve that simple thing.
Are you in sales? Have lofty ambitions of success? Well, are you doing the simple well? If you are not having success – then I know your problem. You are not doing the simple well. Are you a musician? Want to be really successful at it? Then you better do the simple well. Stop avoiding the work of the simple.
Guy Reams (83)
365 Member
