Visionary Target and Roadmap for Realizing It
Visionary Target and Roadmap for Realizing It
Take, for example, Dave’s goal.
Goal: Dave’s goal is to increase his income by 50 per cent over the next three years
Why: So that his daughter can graduate from college debt-free ( or with very little debt) and start her adult life farther ahead than he did.
Let’s assume that Dave gets started on his goal immediately, putting in more effort at work and making sure he stands out. He also spends a few weeks taking the time to audit the skills he has and eventually find a service that he can build a side hustle around. Dave is off to a great start. he made a decision and then used the excitement he felt to catapult himself forward.
Here’s when it might get hard: Six months in, someone on his team gets promoted over him, for a job he was hoping to land. It’s frustrating, Dave has been working his tail off. He has crushed every single task assigned to him. He has consistently brought new ideas to the table and always gets great feedback from his manager. He knows that he is more qualified than the person who actually got the promotion. However, when he asks his boss why he wasn’t considered for the position, she says that the other person just had more leadership experience than he did.
On top of all of that, the last three months have been hectic and full of late nights at the office because of a big project. Dave hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in two months because he still has to get client projects finished, even if that means coming home late.
To make matters worse, Dave has been fighting with his wife more often. Not about anything important, just little things here and there that he usually would have more patience for. He knows that it’s his fault because he can clearly feel the effect of his lack of sleep and is noticeably more irritable than usual and constantly on edge.
This all may sound extreme, but it’s a natural side effect of aiming to do more or something bigger. When you set out to make a change, you’ll need to get it done while still maintaining the other areas of your life. Often, people find themselves overwhelmed, stressed, fatigued and ready to fight all the time. Not because they are bad people, but because change, by definition, requires going above and beyond what you are accustomed to handling.
If Dave experiences something like this, he’ll see his output at work start to decline. He’ll notice himself stop pushing for new clients with his side business. He’ll wake up one day burned out and exhausted. Then, before he realizes it, he‘ll slip back into his prior day-to-day behaviour, allowing the goal to go out of focus and become a distant memory.
This kind of thing happens all the time. It’s probably a pattern you’ve experienced when trying to pursue a challenging goal — things start out strong, your enthusiasm increase and you make some progress. Then life starts to get difficult, as it often does, and it creates a cycle of frustration that either throws you off your path completely or causes so much turmoil in the rest of your life that you end up having to choose between progress toward your goal or maintaining personal balance.
In order for a diamond to be created, carbon must undergo intense pressure and heat for an extended period f time. So, you too must undergo intense pressure when trying to make a change in your life or accomplish a goal. But dealing with pressure isn’t easy — often it just causes you to fall back into old behaviour, often the habits and routines that you’ve already developed over your life. And life doesn’t care whether or not those easy behaviour comes at the expense of the future you want.
So, how do you and Dave deal with it when you are trying to make progress and life decide to throw everything but the kitchen sink directly at your face? The easiest thing you can do when trying to challenge this cycle is to have a strong why behind your goals. If you want to go even further, have a why that you are forcibly reminded of every single day.
In Dave’s example, the minute that life decides to punch him in the face, there’s a much higher chance that he’ll be able to pull himself together and slowly work through the frustrations and issues that he experiences because his why is his daughter’s success. After all, what’s his alternative? He has to wake up every day and look at his daughter’s face. He is constantly reminded of the two potential outcomes for her life, both of which he is in complete control of. If he decides to let life beat him and cripple his ability to make progress, he is virtually assuring that his daughter will have a harder time going to a good school and graduating without putting herself too far into a hole of debt.
On a day-to-day basis, some changes would need to be made in order for Dave to adapt to these frustrations without sacrificing his relationship or quality of life, but the moment he felt like quitting or the moment that his behaviour started to slide back into its old norms, he sees his daughter and instantly be reminded of the future he is trying to create for her.
Picture yourself in Dave’s situation. Which path would you take if you were constantly forced to remember the reason behind why you are working hard and sacrificing in the short term? You most probably try to do everything in your power to keep things moving regardless of what life might throw at you. Having a strong why for your goals works because it allows you to re-sell yourself on the idea when you start to lose interest. It allows you to get your emotions involved and to re-create that initial spark of excitement that drove your decision to take action in the first place.
Your why need to be easy to remember. Try writing it down on a few Post-it notes and posting them in your most heavily trafficked area such as your car, desk, refrigerator door, or the back of your bedroom door.
That’s all for now, my friends. See you all in my next article.
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