2020 Weekly Email: Think big, but...

Do not be afraid to think big.

You wouldn’t care about getting reminder emails if all you wanted for your life was one small project that you could complete on a single weekend.

You’re here because you’re thinking big enough that you needed to hire some help remembering to stay on task. These emails seek to serve your Big Idea needs.

Thinking big is really cool.

Thinking big can build a compelling picture of your future.

Thinking big can help you imagine a future that you will like, after you put the time in and reach your goals.

But the danger…

Of Thinking Big…

The Danger:

Is Punishing Yourself, equally as Big, if you feel yourself slipping.

Don’t do that.

I try not to be too direct in these emails; you know better than I do what’s best for you.

But come on, don’t punish yourself.

Finding ways to motivate yourself makes sense; you’re going to need to stay motivated for a long time if you’re going to continue to put your 2020 goals into action.

But please understand, that punishment, isn’t motivation, it just seems like it is.

I can’t think of a time when someone beating themselves up, suddenly got a wave of motivation. What I’ve seen happen is someone dreams big.

Someone dreams big and then checks their score.

Someone dreams big, checks their score, they’re not doing as well as they’d hoped, and then beats up on themselves about where they are at.

And this punishment continues until they have no more will to work on their project anymore.

Humble Steps.

Not Big Steps.

Humble Steps, Consistent Steps, Humble Score.

Not Big Score. Big Score; Big Punishment.

Humble Score; Consistent Action; Constant Motivation (Even if it’s a less-exciting version of motivation)

Dream Big; Take Humble Steps.

“Small Tasks, Done with Big Love.”

Let’s learn a technique.

The Technique is called Urgent vs Important.

Not everybody has heard of the following technique, so we’re gonna go over it today because it might help with taking smaller steps.

Look at your to-do list.

If you don’t keep a to-do list, then guestimate the tasks in your head, that you feel responsible for.

Sort the list; rank it. Order the list so that you know which things are at the top of your list, and which things are at the bottom of your list.

It would be nice if everything on the list could get done.

But clearing our whole list, that’s a sort of Big Motivation/Big Punishment kind of instinct sneaking back in.

So let’s figure that some things on the list are nice-to-haves.

Some things on the list are VERY-nice-to-haves.

Some things on the list are essential.

Know which are which; and we’re going to go further into how to figure out which is which using Urgent vs. Important.

We want to prioritize the list so that you can cut the list in half, drop some of the nice-to-haves (even if just for this year) and devote more energy to the things at the top of the list; essentials.

Then cut the list in half again.

Take the energy you were going to scatter among many tasks, and apply it to focused work on whatever the most Important thing is.

There’s a difference between Urgent and Important.

Urgent: Some tasks are Urgent and have to get done right now because there’s a ticking clock.

Some task are clearly not Urgent; they aren’t urgent at all; there are tasks so un-urgent that nobody’s going to notice if you don’t make any progress on them today.

Important: Some things are Important.

Some things are so Important, that if you complete them you will feel more like the person you promised yourself you’d be. If you skip the Important things, life starts to feel a little hollow, life starts to feel a little weird; it feels like you’re living in some kind of ongoing dream.

Urgent AND Important: There are Urgent Important things which REALLY matter to your life and you gotta get them done right now because the stakes are so high.

Movies tend to follow stories of people confronting something which is both Urgent and Important to them. The urgency gives the movie its ticking clock, the count-down timer for if the hero fails. And the importance gives the movie its heart; we know what important, terrible things will befall the hero if they fail.

New Years Resolutions are not about Urgent AND Important.

There are Important things which are UN-Urgent; not Urgent at all.

Things desperately Important to you, but which have no ticking clock, and no one notices if you don’t make any progress on them.

Because Un-Urgent but Important goals are so easy to give up on and nobody notices… this is when punishment starts; Un-Urgent but Important goals fall by the wayside, and we don’t know how to get our momentum back, and the BIG-ness of that Importance seems to do away with all nicety and says “treat her like crap until she starts to work again; we NEED this Important thing!!”

You DO need these Important things, they’re Important to you!

But don’t fall prey to any voices that say you need to reserve your kindness to yourself for only days when you are succeeding at your Important but Un-Urgent New Years Resolution Goals.

Motivate yourself in a different way.

This year, the things which are Important to you are going to be a little bit more Urgent because you’ve got this weekly check-in email, unrelentingly showing up on Monday, that’s reminding you how much YOU DO CARE about getting those Important things done, and you don’t care that they’re not Urgent; you’re gonna put some humble small steps of effort in, even though there’s no Urgency to do so.

Small Steps; Big Love.

Big Commitment. Small Ego. No Punishment.

This is a year about what’s Important to you.

If you like the difference between Urgent and Important, the Technique comes from a book you might have heard of but a lot of people never really gave any thought to, it’s called “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” You can read it or not read it, you don’t need to read it; I just gave you one of the best parts of it; the only thing that The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People taught me was the difference between Urgent and Important, it’s only 1 of the 7 effective habits, but oh what a difference that distinction makes. Urgent vs Important. Put that distinction on your eyeballs so that you’re always noticing the difference, and the world will change.

Because you know what you can cut from your list?

Do you know how you get your time back? And your energy?

Enough to keep going (humbly) (small steps at a time) (but consistent) on your 2020 New Years Resolution Goals?


Where some Extra Energy often is lurking, and that you can get back?

Very-Urgent but Not-Even-a-Little-Bit-Important Things.

This is the darkside combo of urgent/important.

These are the things that demand your time right this very second…

And what is it you get in return…?

Nothing.

How many times does an advertisement get its hooks into us and we think “Oh no I’ve got to act on this right now!” and if we follow though, and we buy that thing, it ends up later on, that we have a puzzled look on our face, “why... did I think this was so Important?”

It wasn’t Important; it was Urgent.

Pretending to be Important, is Urgent’s favorite trick.

Because remember the movies? Blockbuster films are often made up of heroes going after some ticking-clock Urgent Important thing that matters to them very much.

People are paid a lot of money to make you snap into action on things which are Urgent and seem Important, but which turn out on further inspection to be fluff. Usually very expensive fluff that wastes our time and burns our dollars.


Now you can watch out for the difference.

It’s not just Advertisers.

There are little bits of Urgent but Not-Important requests that we get hit with all the time.

Co-workers often have urgent tasks that can suck you in; some are important, others are just urgent. Many family get-togethers and family phone calls are Important, but some of the time they are just Urgent. Sometimes our loved ones fall into the same Urgent but Not-Important traps that we used to fall into, and to get us onboard, they sell us on how Urgent their request certainly seems to be.

But you’ve gotta get those to-do lists cut in half; you need that time back. At least for this year.

And when you get really good at this, you can- again for limited amounts of time, put Less-Important tasks on the shelf, and focus on the BIG BIG Important things to you that you have decided for 2020 make the cut.

There’s a feeling of dullness and fog that surrounds us when we fall prey to abandoning our Important things to make way for Fluff. And clarity comes back to life when the Important things are front and center.

PS. If you want to forward this email to someone else who you think might like to get them, the link to the sign up sheet is right here https://noah-wizard.ck.page/4e58210171

That’ll be in the bottom portion of all the emails from now on. And thank you to the member of the audience who requested that feature.

Also, while I don’t remember enough of 7 “Habits of Highly Effective People” to recommend that book to anyone, be sure to read some books to help you along your way this year. If you don’t know which books those are, don’t fret, just stay open and alert looking for outside help; might not come in the form of books, plenty of smart ideas come in through YouTube and Podcasts now; just remember that there are plenty of people teaching really cool things that will help you push back against the fog that life has sometimes been from time to time.

Next Email will be Monday the 27th

Apologies for saying this email was going to be sent out on Monday the 19th of January, today is the 20th.

But, as much as I do care about doing a good job for you in these emails, I’m not gonna beat myself up about it, because more important than getting everything right, is keeping the right things going long enough that their momentum carries us to where we want to go.

There’ll be mistaks.

Like that typo.

Complete and Continue