A
successful life is built on the foundation of successful
tasks — each completed in the pursuit of perfection — one
day at a time.
A goal
sometimes seems so far off and our progress often appears to
be so painfully slow that we have a tendency to lose heart.
It sometimes seems we'll never make the grade. We come close
to giving up — falling back into old habits, which, while
they may be comfortable, lead to nowhere. Well, there's a
way to overcome this inevitable barrier to success, and here
is the secret: Every great achievement is nothing more than
the collection of smaller achievements done to perfection.
Even the "impossible" has been accomplished through the
relentless pursuit of success, one day at a time.
Have you
ever seen a bricklayer starting a new building by putting
the first brick in place? You are struck by the size of the
job he has ahead of him. But one day, almost before you
realize it, he's finished. All the thousands of bricks are
in place, each one vital to the finished structure, each one
sharing its portion of the load. How did he do it? Simple,
one brick at a time. And so is the pursuit of success and
greatness.
A lifetime
is composed of days, strung together into weeks, months, and
years. A successful life is nothing more than a lot of
successful days put together. As such, every day counts.
Just as a
stone mason can put only one stone in place at a time, you
can live only one day at a time. And it's the way in which
these stones are placed that will determine the beauty, the
strength of the tower. If each stone is successfully placed
— with care and quality — the tower will be a success. If,
on the other hand, they're put down in a hit-or-miss fashion
— irrespective of quality — the whole tower is in danger.
Seems simple. Yet, how many people do you know who live like
this — focused on "just getting through" each day instead of
on the "success" of each day. Which are you focused on?
The Habit of Success
Do each
day all that can be done that day. You don't need to
overwork or to rush blindly into your work trying to do the
greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible
time. Don't try to do tomorrow's or next week's work today.
It's not the number of things you do, but the quality, the
efficiency of each separate action that count.
To achieve
this "habit of success," you need only to focus on the most
important tasks and succeed in each small task of each day.
Enough of these and you have a successful week, month, year,
and lifetime. Success is not a matter of luck. It can be
predicted and guaranteed, and anyone can achieve it by
following this plan.
But most
people live a life of quiet mediocrity and never achieve the
success they truly desire because they get impatient. They
want easy success or none at all. They see the path to
success as a frustration, an impediment. Each day spent
short of the ultimate goal is viewed as a time of failure
and as an annoyance. As such, they get distracted by
hundreds of little things that each day try to get us off
our course. Yet the successful among us know the truth: If
the end goal is all we desire, we simply cannot put in the
time and effort it takes to be a success when it counts —
each day — and therefore cannot lay the foundation for
tomorrow's success.
Pay no
attention to petty distractions. Enjoy the easy days and
shake off the bad days. Stay steadily on your track.
Concentrate on each task of the day from morning to night
and do each as successfully as you can. Know full well that
if each of your tasks is performed successfully, or at least
the greater majority of them, your life must be
successful.
The $25,000 Idea
Now how do
we separate the important tasks from the unimportant? Did
you ever hear of the single idea for which a man was paid
$25,000? And it was worth every penny of it. The story goes
that the president of a big steel company had granted an
interview to an efficiency expert named Ivy Lee. Lee was
telling his prospective client how he could help him do a
better job of managing the company, when the president broke
in to say something to the effect that he wasn't at present
managing as well as he knew how. He went on to tell Ivy Lee
that what was needed wasn't more knowing but a lot more
doing. He said, "We know what we should be doing. Now if you
can show us a better way of getting it done, I'll listen to
you and pay you anything within reason you ask."
Well, Lee
then said that he could give him something in 20 minutes
that would increase his efficiency by at least 50 percent.
He then handed the executive a blank sheet of paper and
said, "Write down on this paper the six most important
things you have to do tomorrow." Well, the executive thought
about it and did as requested. It took him about three or
four minutes.
Then Lee
said, "Now number those items in the order of their
importance to you or to the company." Well, that took
another three or four or five minutes, and then Lee said,
"Now put the paper in your pocket. And the first thing
tomorrow morning take it out and look at item number one.
Don't look at the others, just number one, and start working
on it. And if you can, stay with it until it's completed.
Then take item number two the same way, then number three,
and so on, till you have to quit for the day.
"Don't
worry if you've only finished one or two; the others can
wait. If you can't finish them all by this method, you could
not have finished them with any other method. And without
some system, you'd probably take 10 times as long to finish
them and might not even have them in the order of their
importance.
"Do this
every working day," Lee went on. "After you've convinced
yourself of the value of this system, have your people try
it. Try it as long as you like. And then send me your check
for whatever you think the idea is worth."
The entire
interview hadn't taken more than a half-hour. In a few weeks
the story has it that the company president sent Ivy Lee a
check for $25,000 with a letter saying the lesson was the
most profitable, from a money standpoint, he'd ever learned
in his life. And it was later said that in five years this
was the plan that was largely responsible for turning what
was then a little-known steel company into one of the
biggest independent steel producers in the world. One idea,
the idea of taking things one at a time in their proper
order. Of staying with one task until it's successfully
completed before going on to the next.
For the
next seven days try the $25,000 idea in your life. Tonight
write down the six most important things you have to do.
Then number them in the order of their importance. And
tomorrow morning, go to work on number one. Stay with it
till it's successfully completed, then move on to number
two, and so on. When you've finished with all six, get
another piece of paper and repeat the process. You'll be
astonished and delighted at the order it brings into your
life and at the rate of speed with which you'll be able to
accomplish the things that need doing in the order of their
importance. This simple but tremendously effective method
will take all the confusion out of your life. You'll never
find yourself running around in circles wondering what to do
next.
The reason
for writing down what you consider only the most important
things to do is obvious. Handling each task during the day
successfully is important to the degree of the importance of
the tasks themselves. Doing a lot of unnecessary things
successfully can be pretty much of a waste of time. Make
certain that the tasks you take the time to do efficiently
are important tasks, tasks that move you ahead steadily
toward your goal.
Remember that you need not worry about
tomorrow or the next day or what's going to happen at the
end of the month. One day at a time, handled successfully,
will carry you over every hurdle. It will solve every
problem. You can relax in the happy knowledge that
successful tasks make successful days, which in turn build a
successful life. This is the kind of unassailable logic no
one can argue with. It will work every time for every
person.
