What???
I know, I know…Problems don’t sound that appetizing.
They also sound more like something that discourages you from starting your day with passion and intensity rather than a catalyst to push you toward your goals.
Take it from me. I have learned the hard way that saving problems for later in the day–like the leftovers from last night’s steak dinner–rarely works to anyone’s advantage.
Why is this the case? For starters, most problems are not as big or ugly as they seem. We have already discussed at length how the brain tries to protect us from anything that can harm us physically or psychologically.
When it comes to conflict resolution, or any challenging task you are preparing to tackle, your brain starts flashing red lights and sounding alarm bells to get you to move in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, far too often we choose to listen to these warnings, even when we are dealing with something that needs to be conquered for us to arrange that important meeting with success itself.
I am not just talking about problems that need to be solved either. What about that difficult task that you know needs to get done tomorrow if you want to accomplish your goals for the week. When is the best time to tackle that daunting task? At the end of the day after you have had eight draining hours to contemplate how difficult it is likely to be? Wouldn’t it be easier to just do something else first that seems easier and less impactful?
No. I am familiar with the temptation to take the easy fork in the road early in the morning. I have often justified this to myself by promising the motivated side of my inner warrior that I would return to the very spot where I started the day and take the challenging fork in the afternoon and defeat fear then and there.
Here is what I want you to consider: I got sick of not seeing results. When I decided to tackle my challenges in the mornings is when my business started to explode for me.
Let me help sum up the valuable lesson I learned as bluntly as possible. The people who put off the difficult tasks until later will rarely ever get to them. And here is the second part that you probably don’t want to hear any more than I did. The person who solves the most difficult problems enjoys the most success.
Think about it. Do you think traveling to the moon and walking on its surface was an easy problem to undertake? I don’t think anyone will argue this one with me. Clearly it was not. Yet there were a handful of crazy scientists and astronauts who were willing to risk their entire existence on finding the solution and making it happen. They didn’t wait for someone else to figure it out or tell themselves they would work on it later this afternoon. They took action. The result, their names are written into the history books never to be forgotten. I can give you hundreds of other examples.
The answer to the age old question of when should I face my fear? The answer is now. Now. Don’t wait another moment. Feel the fear and do it anyway. The positive byproduct I have found to eating my problems for breakfast each morning is that once the hard tasks are completed for the day, the rest of the hours after lunch tend to be easy to enjoy. I am typically able to enjoy my freedom of time from the late morning until bed time. If I have other problems to solve during the remainder of the day, they seem to pale in comparison to the first one or two once I put them out of their misery. If you want to change your effectiveness starting today, stop holding back on the difficult challenges and have the guts to put them first on the list. Get them done and behind you before the sun has fully risen and spend the rest of the day enjoying the warmth of its shine. I dare you to try it tomorrow and let me know how it goes.
