Tuesday's Thought

Today was my first day back to work after a personal extended weekend. I promptly forgot to grab the healthy lunch I'd prepared and packed (boo!). On the drive to work I got a call from a coworker that she would be unable to train the class that I was supposed to shadow (and learn). Lucky for me, I was able to train the first 40 minutes before another trainer who knows the content better, arrived to take over.

I realized I could have trained the content based on the lesson plans - and that makes me a real, honest-to-goodness trainer.

Anyway, all that aside here is today's thought:

Effort
One evening a young man came home in disgust after a football practice. He explained to his father that he felt that it wasn’t necessary to continue practicing because his team had not lost a game all season. The father took his son to his workshop in the garage and place a thin wooden board on the workbench and then handed his son a small penknife. He then asked him to take the penknife and scratch a line across the width of the board. After doing so, he locked the board and knife in a cabinet. This performance was repeated every evening after the young man returned home from football practice. Each evening the young man would walk out to the workshop with his father and draw the knife once along the deepening groove.
Then came the night when there was no groove. The last light effort had cut the board in two. The father looked up and said, “You never would have believed this possible with such little effort, would you? But the success or failure of your life depends not so much on how hard you try, but the accumulation of your efforts, and whether you keep at it.”
The persistent exercise of a little extra effort is one of the most powerful forces contributing to success. Many times we fall short of our objectives because of the lack of constant and determined effort. People of mediocre ability often achieve outstanding success because they don’t know enough to quit. They succeed because they are determined to. They know the importance of continued effort toward their goals. Philosopher James Allen defined it quite accurately: “In all human affairs there are efforts and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.” Every task you perform has an accumulative effect toward the achievement of your long-term goal. Everything counts. The important thing to remember is that you must do something every day, no matter how small, that will lead you toward the final accomplishment of your objective. Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned. You will always get out of things what you put into them. Just like getting interest on your money when you put it in the bank. Each effort that you make toward a desired task will at the end always pay you interest in the form of achievement.
Many people, despite sincere intentions, lofty aspirations, and a knowledge of how to achieve what they want, fall short of true accomplishment because of their unwillingness to put forth constant, never-ending effort. Thomas Edison emphasized this when he said, “I never did anything worthwhile by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by constant effort and hard work.” Your success and progress multiplies itself out of all proportion to the amount of effort you put forth. Rising to the top can always be reached by topping yesterday’s effort.
As you reach for the highest level of effectiveness in you personal and professional life, always keep this thought in mind: It is usually possible to improve a little more by putting in a little extra effort. It’s that “little bit more” that make the difference.
---Alexander Lockhart.