Think Big. Play Hard.

“What did you do to help you write when it got difficult?”

That was just one of the great questions posed to me by a curious group of 5th and 6th graders at the Idea Toros School in McAllen, Texas. I was there to give a presentation on goals and as it turned out they may have taught me a thing or two. Children always have a way of keeping you on your toes and I find the best ideas come to me when I’m forced to think quickly.

To answer the question, I immediately went to my secret weapon. I looked them all in the eye and with absolute confidence, I said, “I used a bag of rocks.”

“What? A bag of rocks?,” they asked. You should have seen their faces. “You heard me correctly,” I said, “a bag of rocks.”

Now, mind you, these are no ordinary rocks—they are spiritual stones with words engraved on them—powerful words like “courage,” “integrity,” “faith” and “perseverance,” among others. There are 32 of them to be exact and they were gifted to me from a good friend, who instructed me to pull three rocks out from the bag every day and write about the words on them.

What I didn’t know at the time, was that the stones and their words would give me much needed structure.

You see, it’s always been easy for me to come up with ideas and think big. That’s me in motion. But motion, I came to realize, doesn’t produce action. Action takes work. And let’s face it, work is hard. The trick, is to make work fun.

Just like training, creating a business plan or even re-organizing your house, the actual act of writing—sitting down and putting words on paper— is a challenge. It requires discipline, belief in the process and most importantly dedicated time.

The stones helped me understand that writing isn’t just a burst of inspiration. It’s work, and work requires a plan (aka motion). My plan was simple: create a routine and set a short-term goal to write something, anything, every day. I worked the stones into my morning—I would make coffee, have a little breakfast and sit down and write. Having a set time to write and something to guide my writing, helped me take action.

Writing went from process to habit because the stones acted like a catalyst. They warmed me up, created small wins and made it fun. The more fun I had, the more I wanted to write. The more I wrote, the better I got. The better I got, the more fun I had. I gained confidence and that in turn created unstoppable momentum.

Take away:

Motion- Think big, plan, and set goals

Rocks- Use your imagination and find ways to make “the hard work” fun (play hard)

Action- Take small steps, enjoy the little wins and create unstoppable momentum

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