Q. What’s My Elephant?

It’s the thing you’ve been putting off…

…the thing you know you need to change…

…the thing you’ve been meaning to start doing but you just haven’t gotten around to yet.

Speaking from our work with thousands of clients, I can assure you:

We’ve all got ‘em.

Great big gnarly Elephants in the Room.

I wish I could tell you yours, but you probably wouldn’t be able to hear it even if I could.

So instead: Trust yourself.

If you had to guess just based on instinct: what’s your EITR right now?

Jot down any answers you come up with today, and reflect on them for a bit.

Then (in an hour or more) come back and read the next question.

Q. Really, How Do I Pick My Elephant?

There are three important elements to consider when it comes to picking your Elephant:

• Where are your biggest current Elephants?

• What types of actions would allow you to target that Elephant?

• Which of those actions can you easily complete every single day for all 31 days of July?

Let’s look at each of these in a little detail…

1. Your Biggest Current Elephants

As I said before – we’ve all got ‘em.

Places in our life where change is long overdue.

You know the ones —

…the salads you know you should be eating (but aren’t).

…the book you’ve been talking about for years but haven’t gotten around to writing.

…that Spanish you swear you’re going to learn one day.

Where in your life are you avoiding The Thing?

This is the biggest and most important question when it comes to our EITR challenge.

I already gave you this assignment, but I’m giving it to you again and in more detail right now:

On a piece of paper, write down at least 5 specific Elephants that are in the room with you right now.

Be honest with yourself about where you’ve been falling short, playing small, hiding, or self-sabotaging.

Translate those areas into specific Elephants and write them down.

Then, pick the biggest one.

Trust your gut.

Pick the one you can barely stand to look at – the one you’ve been avoiding the longest – or the one that embarrasses you the most.

2. Your Elephant Actions

Now that we’ve selected your Elephant, it’s time to think strategically.

What are the possible actions you could take to confront this Elephant in the Room?

If it’s the salad Elephant from the example above, some potential Elephant Actions would be:

• Having a salad for lunch.

• Enjoying a salad as a mid-afternoon snack.

• Including a side salad with dinner.

Any one of those would let you finally start eating healthier – just like you’ve been saying you’re going to for the past six years.

Some Elephant Actions are obvious.

For the book-writing Elephant – the Elephant Action is simple: start writing the book.

Some Elephant Actions are more nuanced.

Learning Spanish could take all sorts of forms – from doing DuoLingo to hiring a tutor to enrolling in a Spanish course to booking a flight to Spain.

Take your chosen Elephant and write down a few different Elephant Actions that would target your Elephant without mercy.

3. Getting Your Elephant Dosage Right

This step makes all the difference between success and failure in the EITR Challenge.

The way this works is simple:

• You pick your Elephant

• You pick your Elephant Action

• You do that Elephant Action for 28 straight days.

But now we have a constraint to deal with:

What’s your month looking like?

Do you have some vacation coming up? Travels? Surgery? A big work project?

Your Elephant Action has to:

a) Effectively confront your Elephant

while

b) Fitting in with everything you’ve got going on in July

This step is just as important as picking the right Elephant in the first place.

A little forethought goes a long way here.

Map out your month.

Consider all the little challenges life is probably going to throw your way.

And then titrate your Elephant Action dosage accordingly.

Q. How do I pick between multiple Elephants?

If you’re like most people, asking yourself a question like “What have I been putting off?” or “What do I know I need to change?” opens the flood gates.

If you have more than one potential Elephant you could tackle, here’s what I want you to do:

Pick one at random.

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Our next challenge is not the last chance you’ll have to focus on an Elephant in your Room.

It’s more important that you pick something decisively and start preparing than that you pick the “right” Elephant.

So, if you have a few potential Elephants, write those down on separate little pieces of paper, put them in a hat, and draw one at random.

Because actually picking your Elephant is just the start…

​Q. What if I don’t know which Elephant Action is best?

The entire phenomenon of the Elephant in the Room exists because we haven’t been willing to acknowledge what was right there in front of us.

Naturally that same self-blindness crops up in the process of picking the Elephant and the Elephant Action.

If you don’t know what action you should pair with your chosen Elephant, here’s what I suggest:

Write down three potential Elephant Actions that satisfy the following criteria:

• You can do the action every day this month.

• You can complete the action in under 15 minutes.

• You would be thrilled at the end of of the month if you actually did that action every single day for the whole month.

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After you write down a few potential Elephant Actions that satisfy all three of those criteria, you know what to do:

Pick one action at random.

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Again, it’s more important that you do this than that you do this perfectly.

When it comes to facing down your Elephant in the Room, any action is better than no action at this point.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

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