Quirks. Call them peculiarities, idiosyncracies, habits, oddities, eccentricities …

Okay, we’ll end our tour of the Thesaurus!

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We all have quirks which, to some extent, make us who we are. But some of them get in the way of our bigg success. There’s way too many to cover in a short post, so we’ll discuss a few quirks that perfectionists sometimes exhibit.

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Ah … perfectionism. I have to admit to falling into this one, but I get it honestly – my Dad was a perfectionist. To this day, I have to fight the urge to get it perfect. It’s too high of a standard for most of the things we do. We’re only human; we need to accept it.

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The Compulsive Cleaning Quirk

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Something that goes along with perfectionism is being obsessive about something. For example – the Compulsive Cleaning Quirk. No one could accuse me of this. Maybe the Compulsive Picking Up for the Cleaning Person quirk!

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We’re told from the time we’re kids that cleanliness is next to godliness. So Compulsive Cleaners clean … and clean … and clean. And they pick up … and pick up … and pick up. Obviously, clean and tidy are good things but there are limits. This quirk sweeps away your valuable time.

The Infomaniac Quirk

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This is a quirk I constantly fight. It’s the need to have all the information before you get started. News flash – it’s impossible! There’s just too much information available. There are too many options these days. This quirk deletes your productive time.

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The Minutiae Quirk

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People who fall into this trap get caught up in all the little details and lose sight of the bigg picture. It’s important not to get mired down in the bits and pieces and lose track of the cohesive whole. This quirk turns your activities into trivial pursuits.

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Perfectionism can hurt our productivity. So when you feel your quirkiness coming out, here are some little things that make a bigg difference:

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

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Perfectionists aren’t going to settle for anything less than stellar. You will still put out a high quality product or service, but remind yourself that you don’t have to get it perfect.

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Even though my Dad was a perfectionist, he had this saying, “It’s good enough for who it’s for.” Of course, he usually said this when he was working on a project for himself! Remind yourself that sometimes good enough is good enough.

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Know when to say “when”

Give yourself a deadline – be it thirty minutes or thirty days – to accomplish something. This will help you focus on moving ahead without getting caught up in trying to make something perfect.

Make a decision

Take comfort in the amount of information you have. Remind yourself that you can adapt as new information hits your radar.

Remind yourself that “the devil is in the details” but the destination is the direction. Don’t just begin with the end in mind as Stephen Covey taught us; keep the end in mind. Everything should move you closer to your destination.

A law and a question

The law of diminishing returns underlies this whole discussion. You reach a point where it’s just not worth your time to do anymore.

So how do you know when you’ve reached that point? Ask yourself about materiality.

If you press on, what material difference will you make to the finished product?

If it’s material, press on. If not, move on. It’s a key to bigg success.

Have you battled perfectionism? What have you done to get past it? Share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

We think it’s just perfect that you read our post today. Thank you so much!

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Frank Sinatra did it “his way.” Please join us next time when we’ll talk about why Frank wouldn’t make it today. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00397-051909.mp3

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(Image in today's post by woodsy)

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We have a story to share with you about that launch. Sometimes bad luck and bad timing seem to conspire against us. We work ahead on our shows. We had five shows in mind to introduce you to life on your own terms. Our plan was to have them all fully done before the beginning of the week.

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Catching a bug

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Now let’s go back about a month. I bragged that I hadn’t been sick for several years. Not even a cold. Well, you can guess what happened … within about a week, I got the flu. That really slowed us down!

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Yeah, we got behind on our recording because George was so sick.

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A cold front

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After about four days of the flu, I finally was feeling more normal. The next day, I noticed a really bad tickle in my throat. I tried to ward it off – Vitamin C, orange juice, Airborne – but I ended up with a full-fledged cold.

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This all happened when we were coming up on our deadline for recording the five shows that we now call our Bigg Success Primer. We planned to have these shows as a feature for new visitors to Bigg Success.

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I knew I sounded very nasally, but I also knew I couldn’t do anything about it. We just had to go ahead and record. So we decided to do it one day at a time, hoping it would get better show after show.

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So here we were. It was Saturday. The first of the five shows needed to be posted before Monday. We wanted to get that first show done.

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I felt and sounded the best about an hour after taking my meds.

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We’re experiencing technical difficulties

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So we’re ready to record, but we had technical problems with our wireless network. Neither of us could get online which meant I wouldn’t be able to post our new show. We tried working on it ourselves. We rebooted. We went through the troubleshooting procedures. We checked forums. Finally, we called for technical support. After a couple of hours, our network was working again.

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But by then, I was really drowsy – one of the effects of the meds I was taking. So we decided to push recording back to Sunday.

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So on Sunday, we were all ready to record. We were able to get online, but the printer wasn’t responding. Déjà vu all over again! Once again, we tried everything we could think of before going online for support. It cost us a good hour, but we finally got up and running.

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At that point, we didn’t have a choice. We had to record if we wanted to stick with the plan of posting our show on Monday. So we did.

What an experience! In the process, we recognized that things just don’t go as planned much of the time.

___

I realized in all of this that we need to add a line to wedding vows. We say “in sickness and in health”. Maybe we should add “when technology works and when it doesn’t!”

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I think George might be onto something there. We dealt with sickness and technology that wasn’t working all at the same time. I’m glad to say that we made it through!

___

As we discussed this whole situation, we realized something important …

Applying lessons learned can turn what could be a major event into just an annoyance.
Knowing what to do is one thing. Putting that knowledge to work is what counts. All of the things that happened to us could have been really stressful since we had the misfortune of having them all happen at once.

It takes two times as long as you expect to do just about anything.
We’ve heard this said over and over and it’s the first lesson we applied. We had allowed for extra time. So when all of these things happened, we had time. Good thing … we needed every bit of it!

You don’t have to change everything at once.
This is the second lesson that we applied. We heard this from three different people. Two relayed their personal experience to us: Wendy Piersall from Sparkplugging and  Taylor Caby at CardRunners. Another person, Holland Cooke with Holland Cooke Media, shared his observations. We can’t thank them enough for their nuggets of wisdom!

We have some planned changes in the near future. They’re relatively minor things, but they all take time. Because we listened and, even more importantly, applied our friends’ advice to our situation, we didn’t try to incorporate all of our planned changes all at once. Because of that, our stress levels were much lower in spite of the circumstances.

Have you had a situation recently where things didn’t go as planned? What did you do about it?
You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thank you for reading our post today. 

___

___

We hear that saving has replaced spending in today’s economy. Please join us next time to find out what’s replacing saving.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00365-040309.mp3

Related posts

Get More Done by Finding Your Energy Source

(Image in today's post by clafouti)

___

___

___

We have a story to share with you about that launch. Sometimes bad luck and bad timing seem to conspire against us. We work ahead on our shows. We had five shows in mind to introduce you to life on your own terms. Our plan was to have them all fully done before the beginning of the week.

___

Catching a bug

___

Now let’s go back about a month. I bragged that I hadn’t been sick for several years. Not even a cold. Well, you can guess what happened … within about a week, I got the flu. That really slowed us down!

___

___

Yeah, we got behind on our recording because George was so sick.

___

A cold front

___

After about four days of the flu, I finally was feeling more normal. The next day, I noticed a really bad tickle in my throat. I tried to ward it off – Vitamin C, orange juice, Airborne – but I ended up with a full-fledged cold.

___

___

This all happened when we were coming up on our deadline for recording the five shows that we now call our Bigg Success Primer. We planned to have these shows as a feature for new visitors to Bigg Success.

___

___

I knew I sounded very nasally, but I also knew I couldn’t do anything about it. We just had to go ahead and record. So we decided to do it one day at a time, hoping it would get better show after show.

___

___

So here we were. It was Saturday. The first of the five shows needed to be posted before Monday. We wanted to get that first show done.

___

___

I felt and sounded the best about an hour after taking my meds.

___

We’re experiencing technical difficulties

___

So we’re ready to record, but we had technical problems with our wireless network. Neither of us could get online which meant I wouldn’t be able to post our new show. We tried working on it ourselves. We rebooted. We went through the troubleshooting procedures. We checked forums. Finally, we called for technical support. After a couple of hours, our network was working again.

___

___

But by then, I was really drowsy – one of the effects of the meds I was taking. So we decided to push recording back to Sunday.

___

___

So on Sunday, we were all ready to record. We were able to get online, but the printer wasn’t responding. Déjà vu all over again! Once again, we tried everything we could think of before going online for support. It cost us a good hour, but we finally got up and running.

___

At that point, we didn’t have a choice. We had to record if we wanted to stick with the plan of posting our show on Monday. So we did.

What an experience! In the process, we recognized that things just don’t go as planned much of the time.

___

I realized in all of this that we need to add a line to wedding vows. We say “in sickness and in health”. Maybe we should add “when technology works and when it doesn’t!”

___

___

I think George might be onto something there. We dealt with sickness and technology that wasn’t working all at the same time. I’m glad to say that we made it through!

___

As we discussed this whole situation, we realized something important …

Applying lessons learned can turn what could be a major event into just an annoyance.
Knowing what to do is one thing. Putting that knowledge to work is what counts. All of the things that happened to us could have been really stressful since we had the misfortune of having them all happen at once.

It takes two times as long as you expect to do just about anything.
We’ve heard this said over and over and it’s the first lesson we applied. We had allowed for extra time. So when all of these things happened, we had time. Good thing … we needed every bit of it!

You don’t have to change everything at once.
This is the second lesson that we app
lied. We heard this from three different people. Two relayed their personal experience to us: Wendy Piersall from Sparkplugging and  Taylor Caby at CardRunners. Another person, Holland Cooke with Holland Cooke Media, shared his observations. We can’t thank them enough for their nuggets of wisdom!

We have some planned changes in the near future. They’re relatively minor things, but they all take time. Because we listened and, even more importantly, applied our friends’ advice to our situation, we didn’t try to incorporate all of our planned changes all at once. Because of that, our stress levels were much lower in spite of the circumstances.

Have you had a situation recently where things didn’t go as planned? What did you do about it?
You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thank you for reading our post today. 

___

___

We hear that saving has replaced spending in today’s economy. Please join us next time to find out what’s replacing saving.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00365-040309.mp3

Related posts

Get More Done by Finding Your Energy Source

(Image in today's post by clafouti)

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Mom had this old cardboard fireplace that we’d put up every year, even though the thing was practically falling apart. From the time my sister and I were little, to young adults, you always see pictures with that cardboard fireplace. It was a family tradition.

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My mom made noodles every Christmas; I’ve never had noodles like my mom’s noodles. Except for my grandma’s noodles, which is how mom learned to make her noodles. I’m sure my great grandma made the same noodles.

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Well, we were wondering about how these traditions get started. As we talked with Santa a few days ago, he told a story about the origin of one Christmas tradition.

One day long ago, as the North Pole prepared for the bigg Christmas Eve event, things weren’t going so well.

Four of Santa’s elves were sick. The trainee elves did their best, but they couldn’t make toys as fast as the regulars.

Santa began to feel the pressure as they got behind schedule and the deadline loomed ever larger.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her mom was coming to visit. This stressed Santa even more.

Finally, the bigg day was here. Santa went out to harness the reindeer, but he found out that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence, no where to be found.

More stress.

When he began to load the sleigh, one of the boards cracked and the toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys.

So frustrated was Santa that he went into the house for a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. With hot chocolate in hand, he went to the refrigerator and discovered that the elves had eaten all the whipped cream.

In his frustration, he accidentally dropped his cup full of hot chocolate and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made from.

Just then the doorbell rang. When Santa opened the door, there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said, very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas Santa. Isn't it just a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?"

Well, Santa did tell the angel where to stick it and that’s how the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree began! 

Happy Holidays!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00293-122408.mp3

Related posts

Santa Shares Some Jolly Good Tips

(Image in today's post by weirdvis)

Bigg Advice:
Don’t feel alone on this one, Dan. A lot of people face this problem or a similar one. It can be daunting, wondering how you’ll ever get it all done.

3 tips to help you get started on your next project

#1 – Break it down.
Don’t look at it as one bigg project. See it as a series of small ones. These small mini-projects won’t look so overwhelming. You can complete them relatively quickly and easily.

#2 – Just get started.
Start with something that plays to your strengths or that you think is easy. For example, look over the project and see what tasks require input from someone else. Then reach out to those people.

It’s relatively easy to do – just make a phone call or send an e-mail – and it gets the ball rolling.

Starting with the easy stuff gets the momentum going your way. As you check things off, you’ll feel good about the progress.

Then consider diving into those things that seem difficult. By front-loading, you’ll know that you’ll have it made as the project nears its completion.

#3 – Don’t overload your day.
You have a deadline for the whole project. In Point 1, you broke it down into mini-projects. Plan it out so each mini-project has its own deadline.

By doing this, the project won’t consume you. So you’ll look forward to it more, and you’ll be more likely to dive in each day and keep going.

Give yourself some fudge – time to react, to do things that are more fun, to have some downtime, and to work on something else.

Putting the puzzle together
Here’s an analogy to help simplify this process. Think of putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You have all the pieces on the table in front of you. It’s a mess! So where do you start?

Look for the corner pieces! They’re the easiest to find.

Then look for all the border pieces and put them together. You’ll have the framework in place for the rest of the puzzle.

Now, you can start working on the inside. With the picture of the completed puzzle in front of you, start finding pieces that fit into the border pieces and match each other. Keep going until you’re done.

Create a picture of your completed project in your mind. Then put the framework in place and fill it in. The next thing you know, your project will be done!

Thanks, Dan, for sharing your bigg challenge with us!

What's your bigg challenge, send it our way – bigginfo@biggsuccess.com

Our bigg quote today is by Calvin Coolidge, who said:

So to get started, don’t focus on everything, just work on something.

Next time, we’ll discuss why it pays to be late for work. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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(Image by dijani)