Years ago, I read a funny Mark Twain quote: “If you eat a live frog for breakfast, everything else will seem easy that day.” This is a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that if you do the hardest thing first, everything else that follows will seem easier. This is a fun, absurd way to represent a powerful life principle that, used well, can spark significant improvement in our lives.
Recently, I started to view this same concept as “going downhill.” If you quickly ascend the difficult part of the mountain early on, then the rest of the day you can spend coasting downhill. Years ago, I ran a marathon that was mostly on flat ground, except for the very end. There was a long 4-mile hill climb at the end before you got to the finish line. Everyone knew this was coming. They even had signs that said, “The wall is coming,” or “You are almost there, you just have a 4-mile hill to climb!” My favorite was, “Don’t give up, you can crawl up the final hill!” That created an impact on the runners. They all overexaggerated this hill in their minds, so when it actually came, it was a major ordeal.
The same thing happens during your day. Right now, as I sit and type this at 4:40 p.m., I have not had a chance to get to my run, push-ups, squats, sit-ups, or pull-ups today. This is a routine I do every day, but what normally is easy for me to knock out every morning feels pretty yucky. I do not want to do it right now. I have a million reasons why not doing the routine today would be a good idea. My mind is working double time to discourage me from even starting. I have to overcome a lot of resistance to just get started.
However, if I had done all this first thing in the morning, the rest of the day would be downhill. I would not have this routine hanging over my head right now. I could just relax after work, but nope. I have to get up the energy to do my routine. I will do it, I will struggle through it, curse and mutter in a pathetic display of self-loathing, but I will do it. This is all unnecessary and why it is so vitally important to tackle these proactive, difficult things important for your well-being as early as possible.
So, maybe the takeaway here isn’t about forcing yourself to do something you dread every single morning, but more about finding that rhythm where the tough stuff feels less like a chore and more like a launchpad. It’s about setting yourself up so that when the day unfolds, you’re already feeling a step ahead, rather than constantly playing catch-up. Think of it as giving yourself a little head start, a quiet win before the world even fully wakes up. That way, when the inevitable bumps in the road appear, you’ve got a solid foundation to lean on, and the rest of the journey just feels a bit smoother, a bit more enjoyable.
