Sunday, February 28, 2010

Sinking the black

My 16-year-old step-son is a bit of a pool shark. That said, occasionally he sinks all the coloured balls in quick succession, only to push the black around the table fruitlessly while I try (in vain) to catch up.

Have you ever been gung-ho about a project - sinking your coloured balls easily and quickly - only to sabotage the completion of the project by pushing the black ball all over the pool table instead of just sinking the thing? Someone I know has her business website ready to go live. All the content is written - she just needs to push that button and publish the site. Instead, she's pushing the website all over the pool table, anywhere but in the pocket.

People fail to complete things for any number of reasons. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Perfectionism. Fear of not being good enough. Reluctance to 'let go'. Concern about what others will think when we 'go live' with something.

Start today

Make a list of all the black balls you're yet to sink. Projects you've almost finished that would take a relatively small amount of effort to complete. From this list, pick the easiest task or project first - the one that is closest to being finished or simplest to complete - and sink that black.

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