What Is The Secret To Achieving Goals In A State Of Relaxed Calm?

There is more to goal-setting than setting a goal-doing.

If you are pushing in the wrong direction at the wrong time does it really matter whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week?

Imagine this scenario

Goal: to open a door Your strategy: push it open. Problem: the door opens inwards.

After you have been toiling away doing for some time, a well meaning outsider says excuse me but have you ever thought that your strategy might not be the correct one I know someone who is an expert at goal setting and strategy.

You reply Strategy? Goal setting? I havent got time to do that stuff. Cant you tell that Im busy opening this door? Maybe after its opened Ill think about it.

Meanwhile the door is still not budging. This is obviously a tough project that requires more resources. You adjust your project plan, inform all key stakeholders of the impending delay, mitigate damage with your client and phone for reinforecments.

Mike bulldozer. What time can you get it here? OK wait a minute I promised my daughter wed go out to the movies then no no, its OK, Ill take her tomorrow. I gotta get this door down first so Im in a clear headspace first before I can relax and chill out with her anyway. Shell understand.

The bulldozer is successful, you work overtime and clear up the mess and are about to go out with your daughter, but then you notice another opportunity to open another door. Itll be quicker this time. It could be just the opportunity your company needs to finally break through and

You have probably never literally called in a bulldozer, but Im sure that on many occassions, you were so stuck on doing something that you chose a strategy that was eventually effective but also far harder than it needed to be.

Maybe it was delivering a project without clarification of up-front requirements, because there wasnt enough time. Perhaps it spending 5,000 hours developing a product, without taking 3 weeks to ask 20 people in your target market what they wanted. Perhaps it was getting an eventual sale, without having trained the product-expert in "authentic selling" (that would have got the sale in half the time).

Truly one of the biggest impediments to achieving is the notion that goal-setting needs lots of doing.

If your goal is to do whatever it takes, and you are willing to sacrifice your piece-of-mind, your efficient use of time and your relatinoships with those around you, then you will probably get your goal.

If your goal is to drive from Auckland to Wellington and your strategy is to drive your tractor, then you will end up making it there. And when you get there you can even become a speaker and author on how I reached Wellington against all the odds its a great dramatic read but there are simpler, less stressful ways to do something.

Selection of a course of action is mission-critical to your achieving your goals. And the single best person to help you set your course is someone who has been there before. It also helps if they have a few battle-scars (or bulldozer stories) so they can help you avoid their mistakes. "Inspired action" yield more fruit than "assumptive doing".

Get a coach or mentor who has been there before and can help you set your aim right first time.

It will take you from goal-setting to goal-getting in 3 steps rather than 6.

Its the difference between

ready, aim, fire

and

ready, fire, whoops!, aim, re-load, re-fire.