Conclusion

I was teaching a full-day seminar on time management. One of the participants complained several times that “This is so hard!” or “There’s no way I could do that.” After a while, it was quite apparent to me and his colleagues that while he wanted to change his behaviors, he had absolutely no faith in his ability to do so. I’ve never been one to tell people that being productive and energetic is easy. Sometimes it’s downright hard. However, once you have systems in place and have enabled yourself to be productive, it’s much easier in the long run.

But any type of change is hard. When learning new techniques, it’s tempting to throw your hands up in despair and think, “There’s no way I can do all this!” You can. You might just be stuck in a rut. You get into a certain routine and have fixed habits that are hard to break. You know you’re not performing up to your ability, but hey, you’re getting by, so it’s good enough. You have to break out of your own self-limiting beliefs.

When you believe that something is impossible to do, you don’t even try, or you do it halfheartedly, so that when it doesn’t work, given your low level of effort, you say, “See, I told you I couldn’t do it. It’s impossible. I knew it was.” This is the famous self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you can get better and be more productive, you can, and you will.