Train yourself to be GREAT

Train to be great

“What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.”

— Robin WIlliams

Wake up every morning and make your bed. Because if gives you a sense of satisfaction from a task completed and the encouragement to move onto the next task. And if your day didn’t go well, at least you’ve got nicely made bed to come home to - Admiral William McRaven, commander of the US Navy Seals.

While I’m not in the military and I don’t always agree with what they do, this speech by Admiral McRaven is one of the most inspiring speeches I’ve come across. I’ve listened to it many times at the beginning of many days to help get me inspired for the tasks ahead.

Reflecting on the key messages of this speech, combined with the quote above from Robin Williams, it has given me a deep insight into something I’ve always rejected in my teenage years:

How you do anything, is how you do everything!

WHY DID I REJECT IT

When I was a teenager, my dad used to always have a go at me. Beyond the fact that he thought I was lazy (what teenager isn’t), he’d always criticise the way I did the little mundane things like mowing the lawn. I’d never really have a pattern to it. I’d just do random patterns across the lawn, sometimes focusing on the mowing the easiest parts first or sometimes focusing on trying to get as close to the edge as possible.

I always thought that it didn’t matter at all as it was just lawn mowing right. My dad would come out of the house and tell me off about how inefficient my “random” patterns were (since I’d have to go over patches I’ve already covered) or the fact that I’d miss certain areas because…. well… I simply lost track of my “random” patterns.

My dad would always say that if I kept this behaviour up, I’d amount to nothing. Because “how you do anything, is how you do everything” and if I mowed the lawn so haphazardly then I will do everything else in life in the same way.

I used to think that was the biggest rubbish in the world. I’m smart enough to know when something needs to be taken seriously and put more effort into it. Obviously, as a teenager, I’d express this view with enthusiasm. He’d just shake his head and tell me I’d amount to nothing.

BUT MY FATHER WAS RIGHT

Thankfully, I didn’t amount to nothing (at least not that I think of anyway). But my dad was right. Why?

Because the thinking process you develop in completing the small mundane tasks, is the same thinking process you utilise for the serious and big scale tasks. Your brain is like a muscle and the way you train your brain to be stronger is the same way you train your body if you want bigger muscles. Practice, practice, and practice.

What better way to practice than on the smaller mundane tasks, which even if you do it incorrectly the consequences are insignificant. With smaller mundane tasks, you can safely train your brain on all the different patterns that work for you so that when you are eventually faced with a major task, you have an inventory of patterns to choose from. This stops your brain from panicking. You can start deploying the patterns available to you rather than panic because you’re stuck with an empty brain.

How does this relate to lawn mowing? Well, the unmowed lawn is like a fresh new problem. Before turning the lawn mower and just going for it, I should’ve thought about what the most efficient paths would be so that I don’t have to double back or create such random patterns that I forget about patches I haven’t covered and leave unmowed grass behind. If I kept this approach to solving the life’s problems, other than panic, I might just start trying random actions hoping that by chance, I’d do enough to solve the problem.

Perhaps if my dad had explained it in this way to me, I may have been more open to the idea (though as a teenager, I don’t think logic had the effect on me it has today).

So as dad would say, and as reiterated by Admiral McRaven, starting today, do the small tasks in the same way as you would do the big tasks. Make your bed, as if you were making your own wedding cake. Mow the lawn, as if you’re giving you kids a haircut. Why? Because:

How you do anything, is how you do everything!

Blog Photo by Tamara Bellis on Unsplash