A professor stands in front of his class with a big sweet jar. He fills the jar with rocks and asks his students, ’Is the jar full?’ ‘Yes’, they reply, confidently, wondering what this is all about. He proceeds to pick up some pebbles and drop them into the jar, and to the surprise of the students, they tumble into the spaces between the rocks. ‘Is the jar full now?’ he asks. ‘Yes’, they reply, a little more hesitantly. He then proceeds to pick up some sand and pours it into the jar. As the students stare, transfixed, the grains of sand find their way into the gaps between the rocks and the pebbles. ‘Now it’s full!’ he declares.
But he has one more question for his students, ‘If I’d put the sand and pebbles in first, would I have been able to fit the big rocks in?’ As the point of the exercise dawns on the class, they confidently and correctly answer with a resounding ‘No!’
And yet how many people fill their day with small tasks that have little or no impact in achieving their goals? Leaving no room for the big, impactful actions that would move them closer to succeeding. So often we say that we don’t have time for the Big Rocks. But that’s because we fill our time with Pebbles and Sand.
Take health and wellbeing for example. One of my top priorities is keeping myself fit and healthy. Health is my most important asset when it comes to running my business, and being all I can be in life. It’s one of my Big Rocks. And because it’s one of my Big Rocks, I schedule it into my diary first. And fit the Pebbles and Sand in around it. Almost daily I come across people who tell me that they envy me for having the time to go to the gym. They say that they’d like to take care of their fitness but they just don’t have the time. But here’s the thing, we all have the same number of hours in the day, and we all have busy, complicated lives. We also get to choose where we spend our time, so if you don’t have the time to do something, it just means you’ve prioritised something else.
So look at what it is you want to achieve: what are your goals? And what are the things you need to do in order to achieve those goals? Now, schedule those things into whatever diary or calendar system you use. And resolve to keep to those Big Rocks, making them your top priority, and fitting all those Pebbles and Sand in around them. If you want to make a commitment to meeting your Big Rocks, please feel free to use the comments section below.
Categorised in: General