RUN THE POINT: Are You Overwhelmed? Divide and Conquer Your Way to Success

4 Steps to Divide and Conquer Your Way to Success

Recent conversations have sparked me to write a note on dividing and conquering for success. In two different conversations I had with folks who bought my book, "Move the Crowd: 30 Days of Hip Hop Affirmations to Change Your Life," their response to the question, "Have you started reading it yet?," was "No." I could have been satisfied with the fact that they purchased the book, but that wasn't the only reason I wrote the book (another reason was to have an impact on people's lives by giving them a different way of looking at their everyday lives and tangible steps they can take for action). Being the life coach that I am my curiosity was piqued. I came to find out that they had the same answer to the question, but two totally different perspectives on why they had not read the book yet.

In Conversation #1: The person did not read the book yet, because they saw it as a BOOK(increased size for effect). It was this huge thing, that needed a huge about of time to complete. They may not have felt their current life allowed them the time to actually read a BOOK.

In Conversation #2: The person had not begun reading the book because they skimmed through the pages and saw that it was actually a devotional; a book that was broken down into days. Basically they realized the book was designed to be read one day at a time. With that in mind they wanted to start at the beginning of the month, with Day 1 and work their way through Day 30, only reading one 2-min passage a day.

So what is the Quarter Life Answers lesson? Things may seem so big that we procrastinate or never get started at all. So what? The "so what?" ,is in many cases we did not make a clear decision to say, "no" to the item; we just put it off. That means it is occupying part of our mental space. We may feel guilty or bad every time we see or think about this item. Instead check out what the real challenge is then divide it up so you can conquer it.

Steps you can take to Divide and Conquer your challenge:
1. Look at your challenge square in the face and let it know, "I am going to break you down."

2. Grab an envelope, a writing instrument and head to a cozy spot where ideas will flow. The "cozy spot" may be in your home, work, a coffee shop or wherever. Write a couple of things down:
a. Purpose (why are you doing this thing anyway),
b. Vision (what is it going to look like when it's done; what will it feel like to accomplish the task; really tap into the right side of your right brain on this one.)
c. Brainstorm on steps you can take and d. place them in order of what has to happen first and what has to happen next. *Adapted from David Allen's book , "Getting things Done"*

3. Set a couple of dates when your small task will be done

4. Tell a couple of people what you are doing and when you expect to have it done so you put yourself on the spot and they can help hold you accountable.

How has the 4 steps worked in my own life? Well, check out my book. It is a great overall accomplishment to write a BOOK, but what actually went into making it happen were a series of small steps. If I kept focusing on writing a BOOK instead of writing a chapter at a time, the book would never have been completed.

Your Ambassador,
Mike Bruny, CPCC
Certified Life Coach, Speaker and Author
Quarter Life Answers