Have you ever set an outrageous goal? A goal that you may have been ill-prepared to pursue, maybe lacked the skill, talent, or support to reach, but you pursued it anyway?
I remember setting my first out-of-reach, crazy, outrageous goal in the 7th grade. I loved basketball and after we moved onto Andrews A.F. B., in Washington D.C., I decided to try out for the Benjamin D. Foulois Junior High School basketball team.
Three of my neighbors were on the team the prior year and told me I should tryout. Over 100 kids showed up for tryouts. Cuts were posted on the bulletin board, after every practice, for a week. At the end of the week, Coach Hardesty posted his final roster. Fifteen names were on the list, and I was only 7th grader on the list.
Why was it outrageous, and maybe out-of-reach? Take a glance at the picture. I am the very small kid, just to the right of Coach Hardesty. At 4’9” I barely cleared the waist of my 6’6” friend Dean Galloway.
I think what I lacked in size and talent, I made up for in heart and determination. I don’t know if I was the best 7th grade basketball player, and for whatever reason Coach Hardesty selected me for that team I learned a valuable lesson.
“Goal achievement begins with confidence, a belief that you will eventually succeed.”
Make yourself two promises. Copy these, reprint these, hang them on your mirror, or post them in your phone.
- My plan for the New Year includes an outrageous goal and a few resolutions that moved me towards the great future I envision.
- I did not ditch my New Years resolutions on January 17 or abandon my great plan this year.
Read them again. They may sound funny, but there is an important and valuable goal achievement lesson here.
“Your mind cannot tell the difference between what is real and what you imagine in your mind.”
Because your mind moves in the direction of your dominant thoughts writing goals in the first-person pre-achievement form is priming you for success.
When you read goals written in this first-person pre-achievement form on a regular basis you set your mind in motion to seek out a solution. It signals a gap between your current reality and completion.
One of the best ways to prime your confidence and prepare yourself for challenges and adversity is to write all of your goals and resolutions in first-person, pre-achievement form and read them daily. For example, my outrageous goal to make the basketball team would have been written, “I made the Foulois basketball team.”
“I (insert action verb) (insert goal target or achievement)
— First-person, prepossession goal format
As you look towards the New Year, let me again pose an important question. Five years from now, if your life is pretty much the same as it is today, will you be satisfied?
I have been asking people this question for weeks, and not a single person has answered yes. In fact, they generally go on to tell me about some of their dreams and aspirations. Now is the time!
You are an unrepeatable miracle, no one has your special gifts, talents and resources. No one has your unique place in history to have an impact on the people you care about most.
Dream a little and set a few outrageous goals. Write them in first-person, pre-achievement form, and get to work.
You will set yourself on a trajectory that will look back at the end of the year with a list of great achievements and progress towards the your goals and dreams.
Hey, what is the most outrageous goal you achieved? What outrageous goal would you like to achieve in 2015?
I think back to 2 'small steps' in my life that led to rewards beyond my wildest dreams. The first was welcoming my 2 young stepdaughters into my life fully. Now they are grown loving women that bless my life every single day. The other was answering a want add in the paper for "Business Manager Trainee Wanted" - 21 years later I retired as VP of Underwriting for a Fortune 100 Insurance Company. Belief and action matter as well as taking steps that might feel uncomfortable at first.
Learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable is so powerful. A skill we can only develop by taking steps that may bring us face-to-face with our greatest fears! Now the question is what is your next uncomfortable step?
I remember my most outrageous goal, and with hard work, 4-yrs in the making, I had made it. You're right, Jim. In looking back, I was resolved to 'do whatever it takes' and that's the mindset.
James, you are so right, having the mindset to take the next best step is so powerful. It is easy to get locked in the result we are pursuing and forget that it is the journey and process is what is essential to getting the goal or result we desire.