Effort is a Choice

​It doesn’t matter the topic. Whether you’re exploring your creative side, improving your health, learning, or building a business, effort is a choice. You have control over your effort. You either choose to give it your all, or you don’t.

We can rationalize a million ways around effort. Focusing on what other people are (or are not) doing. Indulging in procrastination. Convincing ourselves that it’s not the right time. Waiting for a muse. In reality, none of that matters.

What matters is the effort we bring to the task at hand.

Last month I had two projects on my to-do list that I put off day after day. When I finally said “Enough!” and buckled down to bust out the work, and then completed it, there was a huge sense of relief. Nothing hanging over my head any more.

Why did I keep putting them off? Because they were incredibly unglamorous tasks? Why did I decide NOT to put forth the effort when it first came time to do them? I can come up with a million excuses and cite all of the other things that got in the way, but really it comes down to the fact that I chose not to put in the effort.

When that happens, the pain and disappointment of not having put in the effort compounds day after day, builds on itself. If I don’t want to finish up the accounting on Monday, I’m REALLY not going to want to do it when Friday rolls around. It gets worse as time goes on.

But there’s good news. Because in contrast, when you DO put in the effort, that builds on itself too.

Effort breeds effort.

Productivity begets productivity.

Putting in the effort builds up a greater sense of determination and confidence. To see a challenge through and put the effort in each day spurs me on to choose effort in other aspects of my life.

I recognize that with each endeavor, the effort I bring to the table is a choice.