Have no excuses. The reality is, there is nothing I could say that would be more impactful on the subject than what Former president Barack Obama says in the video.

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I want to share this thought by the always inspirational, sports marketing wizard David Meltzer.

Try to see things through, and like David said, 99% is still stopping short. Sure, the end is in sight, and the result at 99% is no different than the result at 100%.  You may be right, but just in case you’re not, wouldn’t you want to find out?

David believes that last one percent, the extra mile, is an area many people don’t enter, and therefore, it is rich with opportunity. He also believes in the mentality of pursuing 100% and going all-in in the things you do and seeing things through to their entirety, minimizes regret and teaches a valuable lesson.

The difference between ordinary, and extraordinary, is a little extra, that last 1%. Cheesy quote aside, small differences can actually be large differences if you give them the chance to be!

I learned today’s tip from the wonderful Irene Whalen. Although I have only used it a few times, it has been extremely effective. 

In 7th grade, Irene was told by one of her teachers that if she had a question and wasn’t immediately called on, she was to put her hand down and cross her fingers so that she could remember to ask it at a more appropriate time. So instead of having students keep their hands raised and distract the class, they could quietly remember their question and ask it when prompted later.

Irene has taken this concept and applied it in many different areas in her life, remembering to grab a specific item at the grocery store, as a reminder to tell a story after the current conversation has moved on, and to do that one chore first thing when she gets home.  

Crossing your fingers, of course, competes against the alternative of just remembering the question in your mind. In my experience, crossing my fingers has been much more effective, and here’s why.

The act of crossing your fingers creates a strong association with your thought, and the slight discomfort and inconvenience it provides makes you think about the reason why your fingers are crossed, more often.  Essentially, this helps move the thought from your short term memory into your long term memory, because you are frequently prompted to recall the thought and therefore more likely to remember it.  And you could also argue that performing this physical action activates more areas of the brain and dedicates more brain power to remembering the thought, and therefore will be recalled more easily and more often.

This works so well that I now remember, from over a month ago, that I was in the grocery store and needed to buy an oven pizza.  It’s pretty crazy, but it works.

So, give it a try. The next time you’re driving home, or preoccupied with something else, try crossing your fingers, and see if it helps you remember to follow through on whatever that is.

Will power. It’s something you’re either born with, or your not, right?  Wrong!  Studies show that will power is actually utilized like a muscle, and that it depletes in strength when you use it just like a muscle does. There’s a really cool study done at Case Western University that I want to quickly share. One group of participants were asked to eat a cookie, and another group was asked to eat a radish with a plate of cookies next to it that they couldn’t eat. Then, both groups did a difficult puzzle, and the study found that those who resisted the cookie gave up sooner because they had already expended their will power.

Here is how to train your will power, and there are two will power workouts to do that.  

The first workout is to set yourself up for success by writing down what you need to do and when it needs to be done by. This is like stretching your muscle and getting it ready to go. Workout 2 is to condition yourself and build discipline. Make a plan for how you can tackle the task gradually and follow through with it. I’m feeling stronger already! Give those two exercises a try next time you don’t feel like doing something.

I’m just going to jump right into it. Clean up your computer desktop. The reality is, our desktop is our virtual workspace, and maintaining organization and format helps to increase productivity. Benjamin Franklin once said, “For every moment spent in organizing, an hour is earned”, and I believe that. The obvious piece to that is organization helps you find things easier, and waste less time searching for that file or folder that you need. But, that doesn’t actually account for that much time in the day. What I think Franklin was alluding to is that taking the time to look for things serves as a major disruption to your work-flow.  

As we get going on an assignment or project, we build momentum. Our thoughts start stringing together to align everything into one vision, helping our work to naturally layer on top of itself. When you’re in the groove, and you have to spend extra time and energy in preparation, it breaks up that momentum and makes it harder to seamlessly continue where you left off.

Lastly, if you’re the kind of person that gets stressed out with clutter and extra stimulation, then a clean desktop will help you to be more effective with your work just because it is more comfortable for you.

So, there are a few ways to get organized. My technique is to create folders and put my miscellaneous documents and images in those folders. This helps decrease the overall volume of content on my desktop. My rule of thumb is I like having two thirds of my laptop desktop empty. It seems like the right balance for me, but I’m one of those people who can’t stand clutter.  

 “Good things are coming. Can you feel it?". Just because things are a certain way doesn’t mean they are going to be that way in the future. Life can change so fast, and that lucky break or well-earned breakthrough might be around the corner. There’s an excitement about the unknown, especially if you are working hard and applying yourself. Opportunity is abundant and you’re ready to grab it!

The feeling that those good things are coming, provides the validation you need to continue applying yourself. It’s a surge of energy that helps you put a little extra in everything you do. Also, that energy has a strong pull on the good things you are trying to attract, bringing them closer to your grasp every single day.

So believe it. Good things are coming. Can you feel it?

I want to share a success story that has been a long time coming. For almost a year now I have been getting on a call Monday morning with my buddy Zach. He is my peak performance partner, as coined in the book, The Compound Effect, where we share our goals for the week, reflect on how we performed the previous week, and provide criticism, praise, and ideas for each other.

Zach is a very high functioning. He's on the fast track kind of young professional who will undoubtedly do great things in his career and life. But, he has one weakness, which is he can’t get himself to wake up in the morning!

He’s very motivated to get up earyly because he has great days when he is active in the morning, posting up at a coffee shop, and gaining momentum as his morning progresses. But, his body tells him he can’t, and instead he spends too much time being home in bed trying to talk himself into it, not even getting good rest.

To add, I believe that pressing snooze first thing in the morning means that you give yourself a hall pass with the first decision you make in the day, setting the tone for the rest of the day to accept other excuses.

To continue with Zach, we started working toward his goal of getting up consistently at 6:30 A.M., using a report to me as his accountability, but without success.  We were slowly transitioning him to that time, but a funny thing happened. Since the goal was titled, "get up at 6:30", he wasn’t motivated to wake up at 7, or 730 even, because he had already failed to achieve his goal and figured he might as well keep sleeping.  So, to aid in the transition, we shifted the wording of his goal to “Don’t snooze”, which could objectively be measured and applied to all times of the day.  In the first week, he didn’t snooze once and is has already gotten himself down to a 7am wake up time!

I tell this story to emphasize the importance of setting practical goals that are designed for us to achieve. By setting incremental goals, you can slowly tweak your goals to become closer to that target goal!