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Eat the Frog
397 Plays1 year ago
We're delving into turbocharging your business, unveiling the magic of 'eating the frog.' This is a simple concept for you to see bigger & better results in your business FASTER. Are you ready for a game-changing twist that'll shatter productivity barriers? Brace yourself, and let's dive in.
We chat:
- How to prioritize the RIGHT things in your business
- The common traits & behaviours that side-track talented entrepreneurs
- Why you’re procrastinating
- The answer to feeling overwhelmed
- My secret method to eat the frog & making it an easy daily habit
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Eat the Frog' Strategy
00:00:00
Speaker
If you're tick, tick, ticking your to-do list and things still aren't changing in your business, it's probably time to eat the frog. If you've never heard of that saying, stick around because I believe this simple concept is key for you to see bigger, better results faster. And I have a softer, more complete version that I can't wait to introduce you to.
00:00:24
Speaker
Sound good? OK, I thought so. Let's dig in. I'm your host, Tiffany Napper, and welcome to another insightful episode of This or More, the podcast for entrepreneurs looking to supercharge their business and add some sizzle to their journey. Today, we're diving into a crucial topic, productivity and how to prioritize the right things in your business. And I'm going to share the most common thing that I see sidetracked
00:00:52
Speaker
talented, ambitious, driven entrepreneur. So stay tuned for that.
Tiffany's Background and Podcast Mission
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to This or More, a wild entrepreneurial podcast adventure for bold and brave creatives like you. I'm Tiffany Napper, your host, holistic business coach, corporate music industry dropout, a seasoned five-time multi-six figure entrepreneur, yoga instructor, and your go-to gal for heart-to-heart coffee chats. On this show, we're not just here to share stories. We're here to ignite a fire within you and make you realize that the reality you envision is just the tip of the iceberg.
00:01:29
Speaker
You're wildly capable of achieving that reality and so much more. You'll hear my personal triumphs and failures, along with raw, unfiltered stories of fellow creatives who've paved a path to a bank account that screams cha-ching and a life that is filled with joy. There will be live coaching, actionable tips that you can apply immediately, along with a hearty dose of kick-in-the-pants motivation.
00:01:53
Speaker
So my friends, grab your cup of inspiration, settle in, and let's dive into another inspiring episode of This or More.
Avoiding and Tackling Significant Tasks
00:02:01
Speaker
How many times have you pushed things around on your calendar because you wanted to get to it today but you ran out of time?
00:02:09
Speaker
Or how many times have you started with this epic to-do list of like 20, 30, 40 things and you're getting it done and you're feeling good, but you're purposefully skirting around the one thing that you know really matters. You're not alone.
00:02:27
Speaker
Avoiding the one thing that feels big or hard is the most common thing I see keep talented and ambitious entrepreneurs and businesswomen just like you from reaching their goals or making their dreams come true. It's not because you don't have the skills or the drive. Far from it. It's because you've conditioned yourself to start small when what you need to do is eat the frog.
00:02:52
Speaker
This phrase, eat the frog, popularized by author and speaker Brian Tracy, essentially means tackling your most challenging task, the frog, early in the day, setting the tone for a productive and successful day. It's about facing your biggest challenges head on rather than procrastinating or avoiding them.
00:03:10
Speaker
And eat the frog is this metaphorical expression that they attribute back to a quote from Mark Twain. He said, eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like I have to eat an elephant first thing in the morning.
00:03:29
Speaker
But whatever you want to call it, the concept is strong because it really does work. By eating the frog early, you're addressing the task that's causing the most anxiety or giving you the most resistance, setting a positive tone for the rest of the day, and therefore, boosting your productivity.
Psychology of Procrastination
00:03:47
Speaker
Essentially, I like to think of eating the frog as propelling us into forward motion. It's as if we gave ourselves a little push and the rest of the day feels easy. Like hands on the handlebars, feet out in a V, we're cruising downhill, we barely have to pedal. But just because it's proven and it works, doesn't make it easy.
00:04:09
Speaker
So let's dive into our crazy rebellious side and why we procrastinate. There are many, many, many behavioral studies and potential reasonings, but here are just a few. Number one.
00:04:21
Speaker
self-perception theory. This is BIM's self-perception theory from 1972. And it suggests that people infer their attitudes and preferences based on their behavior. When individuals start with small tasks and they complete them, they perceive themselves as productive and capable, reinforcing that behavior of tackling smaller tasks first. So you see what we're doing here, right? We're kind of establishing an unhealthy habit.
00:04:51
Speaker
Another is procrastination and avoidance coping. This is a study from 2013 that explores procrastination as a form of avoidance coping. Individuals may engage in smaller, less demanding tasks to avoid the anxiety and discomfort associated with the more significant challenging tasks they need to complete. Now I want to add a caveat here or an asterisk after challenging because sometimes
00:05:16
Speaker
The task feels challenging, but it's not actually any more challenging than anything else you're doing. You've just built it up in your mind. Another topic for another day. Okay. Another reason we procrastinate is perceived difficulty and effort. So this is another study from 2015 and it indicates that individuals tend to perceive larger tasks as more difficult, making them less attractive.
00:05:41
Speaker
In contrast, smaller tasks appear less daunting and require less perceived effort leading to their prioritization. And then last but not least for this conversation, trust me, there are many, many more reasons why we procrastinate, but another reason we procrastinate is fear of failure.
00:05:58
Speaker
Oh, the good old fear of failure. And that's linked to anxiety and perfectionism, and it can be a significant factor in procrastination. A study by Blunt and Pygol from 2000 found that perfectionists are more likely to procrastinate as they fear their work will not meet their high standards.
00:06:17
Speaker
Sound familiar? It certainly does for me. So yeah, there are a lot of reasons why we might be procrastinating. And often when we procrastinate, we wind up swimming in a sea of small tasks, which leads us to feeling overwhelmed and under satisfied. When we feel like, oh my gosh, why am I working so hard?
00:06:43
Speaker
but my to-do list is not shrinking. Or why am I working so hard and the needle isn't moving? Or why am I working so hard and I'm not hitting those 10K months or 20K months or 50K months that I'm seeing other people on Instagram hit and I know I'm just as talented as they are. I know I have what it takes. So why am I working so hard and feeling so under satisfied?
00:07:11
Speaker
For more than two years, I had this entry survey for my up-leveler society members, and I asked them to share a few words to describe how they were feeling upon entry, and 90% of the participants used the word overwhelmed.
00:07:28
Speaker
So yeah, overwhelm is a real problem. And there's a fairly simple solution. If you're listening, you probably know where I'm going with this, right? So I believe we feel overwhelmed when we lack discernment. Essentially, we are thinking about too many things at once. And this is not the same thing as having too many things to do at once. Because newsflash, not everything is urgent. Not everything is important.
00:07:57
Speaker
overwhelm often stems from us not being able to discern what's urgent, what's important, from everything else.
00:08:05
Speaker
Hence us ending up doing all of these small tasks over and over and over
Solutions to Overwhelm and BGA Method
00:08:12
Speaker
again. It's like having a buffet of tasks, but not knowing which ones to put under plate and which ones you can come back for later or give to someone else. So no surprise here, but the answer to overwhelm is to get clear about what matters. And then once you've identified it, to eat the frog.
00:08:31
Speaker
This is exactly why I developed the BGA method, because eating the frog is a great concept, but I felt like there was an important step missing. Like, how do we identify the frog? What if we think it's a frog, but it's really a tadpole? Is it possible that we've conditioned ourselves so well to chasing that small dopamine hit with all of those small tasks that we can't even identify the frog at all?
00:08:59
Speaker
I developed the BGA method when I personally was stuck in this toxic loop of checking my phone and scrolling Instagram every morning before I got out of bed and then doing all of these small little tasks avoiding the thing that I knew I needed to be doing.
00:09:16
Speaker
So I knew I needed to recondition myself. I needed to develop a more positive habit. I wanted to habit stack as well because I'm a big fan of James Clear who wrote Atomic Habits. I'll come back to that in a second. But I needed to recondition myself and I needed to create a new dopamine hit.
00:09:34
Speaker
I needed to be able to identify the frog and then I knew I needed to immediately get to work. Do not pass go. Do not collect one out, but $500. No room for error. No room for distractions. Right. So BGA stands for breath goal action. And it's actually a little play on something I learned in yoga teacher training, which was called breath
00:09:57
Speaker
It was a really simple formula for us to cue a yogi into position and ensure success, right? So I thought, well, I need to ensure success for myself as an entrepreneur. What about breath, goal, action? It's a really simple three step action.
00:10:14
Speaker
formula that can revolutionize how you approach your daily to-do list. It's eat the frog but with a little extra flair, okay? So by calming your mind and then giving you a new dopamine hit when you celebrate your daily progress at the end of the day, eating the frog now turns into an easy daily habit.
00:10:35
Speaker
And just like that, you'll notice a decrease in feeling overwhelmed and an increase in your success rate. So I shared this BGA method after I developed it with my coaching clients and the results after just five days spoke for themselves. So we did a little five day challenge after five days. Here's what they reported.
00:10:53
Speaker
I loved that I quickly knocked out tasks that had been hanging over my head. Someone else responded, same. I did something that I had been putting off for weeks. Lots of ease there. And then another person, I had some really productive and focused spurts of energy. I would get a ton done in one hour that I normally would stress about and take two and a half hours to do.
00:11:16
Speaker
So we clearly all needed a system. It wasn't just me. I'm going to break down the BGA method for you. Okay. Here's how it goes. We start by calming our mind and focusing our breath. There's a little figure eight graphic inside the BGA method journal that allows you to trace it while you breathe in and out. This allows you to start to slow your breathing, create equal length
00:11:39
Speaker
inhales and exhales. This deliberate focus on counting and coordinating our breath helps in enhancing mindfulness and present moment awareness. And this more deliberate and efficient intake of oxygen also can lead to increased energy, improved focus, and big surprise here, but improved productivity. So it's a really essential part of the equation. Once we're feeling calm, because we've
00:12:06
Speaker
Concentrate it on our breath. We're gonna identify our goal for the day, keyword day.
00:12:13
Speaker
This should be a goal that you can realistically get done in one day. So rather than write a book, it becomes write five pages. Or rather than make $10,000, it becomes follow up with three warm leads. This becomes our goal for the day, okay? And then last but not least, the easiest and most critical part of all is action. We're gonna break that goal down into several smaller tasks
00:12:38
Speaker
that you can do, you can take action on immediately. So, write five pages becomes open my laptop, open Google Docs, set a timer, type for 20 minutes.
00:12:50
Speaker
Four quick, punchy action items. Immediately, I can open my laptop, open Google Docs, set a timer, and write for 20 minutes. We ate the frog. Follow up with three warm leads. Follow up with three warm leads becomes, open my CRM tool, for me that's HoneyBook, identify three people who I can follow up with, open my email account, write the first email, write the second email, write the third email. I don't know if that was six or five,
00:13:18
Speaker
Boom action items that I can start on Immediately and then at the end of the day you get to celebrate your progress. What went well? What
Celebrating Progress and Productivity Tools
00:13:28
Speaker
are the results of you eating the frog that day? What micro or macro achievement are we celebrating? So James clear who I talked about a minute ago and is the author of atomic Habits talks about the benefits of the dopamine hit and of acknowledging our practice our progress He says that
00:13:48
Speaker
Small changes can lead to remarkable transformations, and one of his key beliefs for ensuring a habit sticks is to make it satisfying with a reward system. According to James, rewards reinforce habits. This is why it's essential that you celebrate your progress and feel a sense of accomplishment after completing the task. This positive reinforcement encourages you to do it again tomorrow.
00:14:14
Speaker
By using the BGA journal method, you're not just managing tasks. You're actually directing your energy and time towards what truly matters for your business. It's a game changer for entrepreneurs seeking to move the needle and make their dreams come true.
00:14:29
Speaker
Are you ready to be the superstar that you are and kick procrastination and overwhelm to the curb? Head to tiffanynapper.com slash shop and grab your very own BGA journal. With a daily guided practice and an evening check-in, it's easy to start eating the frog on a regular basis. Again, just go to tiffanynapper.com forward slash shop and add to cart.
00:14:52
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. It really means the world to me. Go ahead and hit that follow button so we can stay connected on this journey. Until next time, stay resilient and know wherever you are, whatever you've accomplished to date, this or more is in your future.