Goals! and SMART goals, everybody and their dog knows about them.
But there is nowhere in these wonderfully well formed goals for ‘not pulling your hair out or getting totally stressed out’.
As an aside this might be a disadvantage of living by acronyms…
I am currently re reading Michael Neill’s book, Creating the Impossible. It’s a 90 day programme for self coaching yourself through a project.
Day 16 struck me with its simplicity and profundity.
There is one metaphor and two steps.
The metaphor is programming a GPS. We only need two things which are, where we want to go and where we are now.So for the goal/project we are asked to write down:
- what exactly are we trying to create?
- where are we now in relation to that goal (not a judgement about how well or badly we are doing)
So for example my goal is to earn my living from writing and live back in Malaysia. My current situation is I am living in the UK and have a blog, two books on Kindle, another book in progress and am submitting for writing jobs on Upwork.
When I did that and read out my goal aloud, as Michael suggests, and sat quietly with it I felt much clearer. It immediately focused me on what I am up to.
Later the same morning I saw my next step, a course specifically to improve your blog from an industry leader was on special offer and affordable. I have now joined that course.
We only need to see a little way down the road, do what makes sense to do, trust life’s GPS and put in the work.
If this makes sense to you, try it and let me know what occurs to you do do as your next step.