Haley Noehren - Assignment #19 - I Don't Actually Eat Frogs

My dad has an obsession with self improvement books. Every month (although it feels like daily) he comes home with a new book on how to work harder, improve your mindset, and be the best you. I don't really have the time or interest to read self help books, yet there was one instance where one of my dads books actually impacted me. I remember walking downstairs and seeing the book on the kitchen counter. It was large, green, and had huge eye-catching text on the front. But it wasn't how the book looked that caught my eye, it was the title. This weird new book had an even weirder title- "Eat that Frog". My first impression was that my dad was gonna make us eat frogs. Gross. After questioning my dad, and making sure that I didn't have to actually eat a frog, he explained what the book actually meant.
Often in life we chose the easiest item on our to-do list first, and save the harder or more time consuming ones until last. What my dad told me, was that "Eat that Frog" meant do the hard thing first. Get it done. Push past the resistance to put it off and develop determination to get it done. For some reason that stuck with me. If I could do what I didn't want to do first (like Cornell notes for AP world) then everything else I had to do would seem so much easier. The idea seemed compelling, so I tried it. And surprisingly, it worked! As I became more determinated to work hard and "Eat that Frog", doing school work and managing life became easier.
What started out as a joke, turned into a great piece of advice for me. Work through the hard stuff now. Just get it done. The big assignment or project isn't going to go away, so why not start it now and get it done? Needless to say, the phrase "Eat that Frog" has helped me from falling behind and procrastinating important projects.