Set your goal, and then think about how.

​One of the fastest ways to stop yourself achieving goals is to think about how you’re going to get there.  That may seem contradictory but give me a sec to explain.
 
I’m all for planning.  Actually, planning saves me A LOT of inefficiency because it means I can get a few things done at the same time if they fit logically together.  For example, getting all the things you need from the one aisle in the supermarket while you’re there, instead of going from one end of the shop to the other because that’s the order your list is in.  Or scheduling meetings on the same day so you can plan for an uninterrupted day of desk work.
 
Planning is great for those day to day tasks where you know what the outcome looks like.  Want to go shopping?  Write your list.  Want to go on a trip?  Plan your itinerary.  Want to meet friends for lunch?  Put it in your diary.  Think it, plan it, do it.
 
But what about those bigger goals?  The ones that seem bigger than you can imagine.  Those that you have no idea HOW you would ever get there?  Well, this is where the conflict can arrive.  Because in those situations, all of a sudden, the how becomes super important in your mind.  In fact, because you don’t know how you’re going to get there (now), you become convinced you’ll never know how, and therefore you won’t be able to get there and the how wins.  The goal goes from being something to aim for, to a dismissed dream.  Simply an idea you got excited about for a moment only to have it slip through your fingers.  But it doesn’t have to.
 
When you have one those big, hairy ideas where you can’t imagine HOW you’re going to there – don’t think about the HOW.  So, you don’t know how – so what?!  Focusing on the ‘lack of how’ will only crush any momentum you ever had towards making that idea a reality.  Put the how aside.  Say yes to the idea.  Lean into it.  Give it space to breathe and grow legs.
 
There’s a well-known saying “If you can dream it, you can do it” – and that ‘doing it’ means a focus on the dream, not on the how.  When you give that dream, that idea, space to breathe…it finds its own ‘how’.
 
At the start of this year, I wrote a list of things I wanted in place by 31 December 2019.  I had no idea HOW any of these would happen.  The how wasn’t my focus, the outcome was.  Here’s a sample of how the year has gone:

• Goal: find ‘the right’ place to run my business from (I had certain criteria for what was ‘right’)
  • January 2019 – I signed a lease on a beautiful little place that ticked the boxes, and business is great!
• Goal: be self-employed
  • June 2019 – I signed a contract on behalf of my business that has enabled me to become self-employed
• Goal: publish my book
  • This one is still a work in progress.  I don’t have the how figured out – but by focusing on the goal, it keeps me alert to opportunities that will enable this to happen.  One by one I lean in and connect with the right opportunity, and I have no doubt this too will happen – and soon.  (Stay tuned!).

 
If you stopped focusing on the how, and leaned into your (big, hairy) goal – what would change for you?  If you find this idea to be a challenge…why is it a challenge?  What’s one goal you’d really like to achieve, but you keep getting caught up in the how?
 
I’d love to hear from you!  Let me know your experience with the ‘how’ by leaving a comment below.
 
Have an awesome week,
Gillian