The Power of Heroes (Part 2)

Written by Dave Navarro on March 16, 2006

In the first part of this article, we talked about leveraging the success of others to put you in a more resourceful state literally “on demand.” By vividly imagining your role model stepping into your shoes, you discovered that you could overcome some of your own disempowering behaviors as the “hero” temporarily came into control.

This is a great time management technique because it can help you push past the time-killers of procrastination and fear.

That was the carrot. Now let’s look at the stick - the second question. Here’s how the two look together:

1. Who do I know of who has a phenomenal ability to manage time?
2. Who would I be embarrased to have find out about my time management shortcomings?

It’s no secret that fear drives us. the problem is that fear generally drives us to inaction. What if I fail? What if I get rejected? What if it just doesn’t work? Those kind of thoughts paralyze you.

The second question above, however, can have the opposite effect. It can catalyze you. It can stir you to take action.

Think about it. If you’ve got someone special coming over your place in an hour, and you haven’t cleaned up in a while, suddenly you’ll have the motivation to clean like a maniac so that you don’t look like a slob when your guest comes over. You want the place looking great - and more specifically, you don’t want to feel embarrased or humiliated when the guest arrives.

You can take the same principle over to time management. There are probably some areas of managing your time, your focus, and your motivation that are, well … sloppy. And there are some people you know - and whom you want to feel a certain level of respect towards you - who you would be terrified to have find out about your shortcomings.

So use that fear. Use it as leverage to get you moving. And you can do that in one of two ways.

1. Good: Vividly imagine the embarrasment you’d feel having to tell someone you aren’t meeting your goals because you’re procrastinating, or wasting time, or you just can’t summon up the willpower. Feel the pain of admitting weakness and let that pain push you to take action.
2. Better: Don’t just make it a “what if” situation - make it real. Get accountable to someone by telling them your time management/focus/motivation goals and report in. Knowing you will have to show results to avoid that pain will motivate you even more.

Give this a shot today, and please leave a comment on your results. I’d love to hear about it. And pass this along to a friend, as well. You two can compare results & help each other get even more out of this tactic.

So get to it now, before the motivation wears off!

All the best -

Dave Navarro