How Do You Eat An Elephant?

What’s the next daunting task that lays ahead of you? 

Mine was push-ups. A full hour of nothing but push-ups. Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea at six in the morning with a small group of sleepy-eyed but intrigued participants.

“How many push-ups can you do in an hour?”, Jimmy asked rhetorically. “This is not a competition. This is a personal challenge, so you can see how mentally strong you really are!”, he continued. 

Looking around the room, I saw a mixed bag of challengers. Some had clearly been eating push-ups for breakfast for years. A few more concerned faces admitted to having only ever done a handful in their whole lives.

Jimmy reassured the group. “Pick a small number, like 5. And do 5 push-ups each minute, for 60 minutes. You’ll be on 150 push-ups before the sun is up.”

And so we began. Just a few push-ups at the start of each minute. As the ship cruised on and sun rose over the horizon, we pressed forward. Intrigue turned to confidence, turned to enthusiasm … shortly followed by struggle and pain. But as we moved through the process together, it never felt impossible to do another 100. Everyone, at their own rate, continued moving forward.

So, how do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time of course.

Whilst I certainly haven’t been consciously aware of this fact, essentially every challenge I’ve ever overcome has been overcome in the same way. One bite at a time.

So how can we apply this in our own lives?

• Writing a blog post? Start with a quick draft.
• Beginning a new project? Start with a project plan.
• Starting your own business? Start with your Facebook page.

Whatever the daunting task you’re facing right now, break it down and eat it one bite a time. You’ll be amazed at how far you’ll get before the sun rises.

What’s that? You want to know how many push-ups I did? 370.

Let me know how many you think you could do. Then try it for yourself and let me know how many you actually do.