What if I told you that there is a process, a set of steps, that are simple, easy, and yet proven to turn lofty goals and dreams into reality in the world?
Brian Tracey used to say, “What one big thing would you dare to do if you know you couldn’t fail.” And at the time, the generation of people he was talking to mainly was conditioned to think “realistic” to play it small basically and not rock the boat. To conform, get along, and get on with the program.
Today things are a little different - most millennials have no problem thinking big. Billionaires are the new millionaires almost, and with the reach of social media, e-commerce, and all that other good stuff that has come our way over the last two decades, a single person with a dream can do a lot of good in the world, which is great! The problem is that most people who have lofty ambitions and big dreams never see them come to reality.
And here is why, there is a process for doing this, and most people don’t know about it. The process is like this:
- Start with a dream, turn it into a goal (what you want to get done by when written out).
- Work backward and find out the major things that have to happen for your dream to become a reality. Set a deadline for each of those.
- Then pick whatever actions you can do - no tasks, actions and make sure you do those.
The more you do, the more you learn, the more you refine your future actions and the better you hone into your larger goal. And if you don’t give up when the going goes tough, you’ll succeed.
Notice that there is no breaking down deadlines into sub-sub-sub deadlines with sub-sub-sub-tasks. You’re not reading this to learn how to structure projects for building skyscrapers, you are reading this to learn how to turn your dreams into reality, one at a time.
What’s even better, is that this works with teams too. For a team, don’t create the actions for them. Work with your team to setup the deadlines, and then have everyone define actions that will help get those deadlines done.
Caution, there is some subtlety here, I am not saying setup actions from today to the achievement of your goal all that the same time. This is not “list out all tasks and get them done in priority order” thing. That stuff doesn’t work in the real world as well as you are led to believe. What works is to have a goal or outcome in mind and then do today what you can do to move towards it.
Again, this is not “agile” meaning there is no deadline and things take as long as they do, and all you need to do is provide evidence of progress. This is about turning your goals into reality. You are trading in your life for your goals - your one, and only, life. And that of your team members too! Do not take this lightly.
With the goal in mind, and the deadlines at hand, do what actions you and your team can to move in the right direction and meet the deadlines. And along the way you will undoubtedly have to adjust your plan, because things will change on you, and because you will learn more and make better decisions.