Someone once said one of the keys to being successful is to” eat a toad a day”.  This quote has been attributed erroneously to Mark Twain but It doesn’t matter who said it – the truth is that this is a very powerful habit to get into. Of course, you don’t actually have to eat any kind of cold clammy toad or frog – which I should imagine is a rather horrible thing to do – but it means doing the most unpleasant or difficult task at the beginning of your work day and now that’s not hanging over you, you can enjoy the rest of the day!  It’s not just at the office either. This is a good discipline to apply to other areas of our lives. If you need to do it then I suggest you  get organised the night before; have the telephone number ready, have all the documents you need in order and get clear on what result you are after.  This also prevents procrastination. Then as soon as you are at your desk  and ready to go, pick up that phone and make that call!  You will find the following good things will happen.

1. Now you have got the hard stuff out of the way you can enjoy the rest of the day.
2. You will probably find that whatever it was that you thought of as hard or difficult about that call wasn’t as bad as you thought and the fear and anxiety was something you brought to the problem in hand.  So you were worrying unnecessarily.
3. That, in turn, teaches us the lesson that we can often make things harder than they really are and once we discover that, we can learn not to create so much meaning around what we think of as problems.  I know many times I have not made calls, sometimes for the lame reason that the person I am calling might be having their lunch and I am interrupting.  Powerful people make the calls that they need to make to get the results they need to take.   If there is an issue, communication is your best weapon.
4. The act of actually making that call and resolving that issue is going to make you feel powerful   – so powerful that you can now confidently take on any further toads should they hop by.
5. That feeling of personal power, accomplishment and achievement can be such a strong feeling that is can be a natural high. Learn to love that so if you have to coach yourself to eat that frog then focus on the great result you will get rather than the fear you feel right now.  The only way around some problems is through.
6. And finally, you  will be developing a powerful habit to help deal with procrastination and therefore become more effective in living the life you want to live.