Having ideas are great, having goals are extremely important, and being ambitious, determined, hardworking, and focused are all really solid and respectable qualities.
But many of us make the mistake of becoming too ambitious and have too big of goals that we try to chew off in one giant bite, and soon realize it’s much more than we can handle and end up giving up pretty quickly. And that NEVER feels good, or allows us to grow and flourish as individuals.
That said, there are a few pretty simple and straightforward steps you can take to significantly increase your lofty goal success rate which will also help to build your confidence, increase your sense of personal empowerment and contribute to your purposefulness in life.
1. Break It Up:
When our ideas, goals, and ambitions become too big for our britches, we often become paralyzed with feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all, which then prevents us from ever even getting off our bottoms and getting going in the first place.
When we get too overly and solely focused on our North Star and put all our time, energy and effort into reaching it as soon as possible, we quickly become demystified and discouraged by the fact that achieving said big goal often takes a whole lot more than we’d originally thought.
Not to say that have wildest dreams are a bad thing – no, not at all, but if we’re going to have big huge ambitions it’s imperative that we take several steps back and break said lofty goal into several smaller and achievable goals.
2. Create Opportunities for Smaller Successes Along the Way
Accomplishing a big goal takes a lot of time energy and effort. We are giving a lot of our valuable selves to it! And if we’re going to be in this for the oft required long haul, it’s imperative to take things back a bit and go at it by accomplishing one small step at a time.
To get good at something and keep ourselves moving toward our bigger goal we need to see ourselves making progress in order to stay enthused and keep motivated to move forward.
Taking things one step at a time and setting small, short term goals gives us the opportunity to build our motivation and confidence by creating a roster of successes and accomplishments. This builds momentum and keeps us motivated to go the distance.
And don’t forget to take the time to celebrate and say “Good for Me!” when we cross said steps off our list. Accomplishment without acknowledgment won’t do us very much good.
3. Learn From Others:
You also don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. Using others; their experience, success, and failures as we move through along our goal trajectory is an invaluable tool!
Learn about others who have achieved what you are looking to accomplish and do a little research into how they got to where they are. What steps did they take? Which resources did they access? What kind of support did they find most useful? What pitfalls did they encounter that you can try to avoid?
Ask them. Ask people who know them. Or you can always just read their biography.
4. Don’t be Afraid to Work Hard:
Put the time in. Work at whatever it is you would like to accomplish and be patient with the process. Often things take a lot longer than we expect and may even require more work than we were originally anticipating.
But the truth is we value things more when we have to work hard at them. It’s much more satisfying and fulfilling than when things come more easily to us.
5. Work Smart:
Last but not least, be flexible. If a course of action is working how you thought it would, have a good look at why and start exploring other options that may work better you.
Maybe all said approach needs is a little tweak, but it also could require a complete overhaul. Being able to let go of what we thought was going to work great, but proves otherwise will save you a lot of time and frustration. There’s nothing worse than trying the same thing over and over again with the same unsuccessful result – oh, and isn’t that the definition of insanity?
And as one of my favourite sayings goes: if it’s working, do more of it. If it’s not, stop doing it.
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Now my question to you is: what have you found helpful in becoming successful at reaching some of your bigger, loftier goals?