One of the many training courses I went on during my corporate career was Time Management. We all got sent away after two days with a black Filofax and a binder of course notes. I must admit I still use the Filofax system to this day having had various attempts at putting it all on an electronic device it still works best for me. On this course however I remember hearing about ‘eating elephants’ as a way of tackling very big and complicated tasks. Again, although I don’t use the phrase eating elephants the concept of breaking projects down into bite sized chunks is still part of my everyday life and a technique that is recommended for any type of goal or project that initially seems scarily unachievable at the onset.
Many years later during my NLP training the concept of chunking came up as a technique like on the time management course but this training coincided with a major challenge I had set myself an Ironman Triathlon. The bit that scared me the most was the open water 3.8k swim for many reasons, I couldn’t swim front crawl proficiently and the whole exposure of open water with no safe pool sides to escape too sent me into a cold sweat. The way I got through that swim in August 2006 was breaking that massive scary swim down into bite sized chunks I literally swam from buoy to buoy only looking at the orange plastic thing in front of me in the dark water and then on the next one and the next one. It worked and amazingly I reached the end of the swim to face the 112-mile bike ride. Again, chunking worked it was a three-lap course and I broke each lap down into half so I had 6 bite sized chunks. Same with the marathon run, we had to run out of the town onto a dual carriage way and then out and back twice along the long hilly route before returning through the town back to the finish line, another 6 bite sized pieces. The whole 15-hour event I broke down in my head to manageable achievable elements.
The same approach can be applied to anything e.g. Decide what type of job you want, who advertises these jobs, who do you know who has access to these jobs, what type of CV is needed, interview practice, apply, get feedback, repeat etc.
Sandra Webber is author of Own It Book – regain control and live life on your terms. If you are interested in more information on action planning grab a copy on Amazon http://amzn.to/2m3l8Vl and work though some of the exercises at the end of each chapter.
OWN IT 