Making the impossible, possible

In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll wrote "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Today, I don't know if you've had your breakfast or not yet, but I certainly don't want you to believe six impossible things. Just one will do to start with.

The one impossible thing that I want you to believe today - and I really mean BELIEVE it with every ounce (or gram) of your being - is that you actually, really, truly, honestly CAN achieve your long term goals in life.

Don't quite believe it - read on

A reminder
Cast you mind back to 2003, when Aron Ralston hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. He was the young climber who had to cut off his own arm to save his life. Aron was born in Indiana in 1975 and set off with a goal of climbing all of Colorado's peaks over 14,000 feet high - known as the ‘fourteeners'.

Tragically his right arm was crushed by a falling boulder on one of his trips. After being trapped for five days and facing certain death, he had no option to cut off his own arm and make his way to safety. I can't possibly do his story justice in this brief weekly broadcast - you can find it fully described in his book, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place".

An amazing story, but one that hasn't quite ended yet - here's the punch line:

In 2005 Aron became the first person to climb all the fourteeners, solo, in Winter.

I think we safely say he achieved his goal.

A tip to help you achieve your goals
Take a ten minute break. Right now. Plan your day on paper. Make yourself a list of everything you would like to achieve today. That's right, everything.

Now, get two coloured highlighter pens and mark all the tasks that will take more than half an hour, and all those that will take less.

Set your own priorities for the jobs, but make sure you complete at least two short ones for every long one.

For every long job crossed off the list or two short ones, give yourself a small reward. A five minute break, a square of chocolate, a cup of coffee. You choose.

Now watch as your busy schedule starts to make more sense.

Welcome to the wonderful world of time management. Of course, there are many more ways to 'cut your cloth' when it comes to dividing up time. I use several methods and will write about the others on another occasion. I find the one described above is useful for those times when you just need to 'clear the decks' of all the crud and rubbish that's lying around, so you can get back to the serious, big issues in your business.

That's it folks for this week - as usual, your comments welcomed and appreciated, particularly with reference as to what you'd like to hear about. I do get quite a few e-mails by the way, and I read them all, so please don't feel shy about getting in contact.

Best wishes for the coming week.

Chris Davidson
Editor, Professional Speakers Journal
editor@professionalspeakersjournal.com