Big – ElPropósito5 min de lectura

Ambitious goals

Have you heard the saying "the only limit is the one you set"? When it comes to goals, how big can a goal be? Is there a limit to the goals we set? Is there a limit to ambition? Objectives are a compass and an essential guide to success. We could also live without them and feel no regret at all. Yet the evidence shows that the world’s greatest works were created with a very clear purpose, and almost everything wonderful, and sadly everything most perverse too, was guided by a series of steps taken around a goal. How can something so important go so unnoticed as time goes by? Let me share a bit of what I know so your goals stay as close as possible to your life purpose.

One key element of a goal is a reference point. Sometimes I think the lens through which we see a goal is not big enough to give us a point of comparison. When Elon Musk started out with rockets, for example, he could compare his ideas with every rocket the United States and Russia had already launched. The same goes for Steve Jobs and his groundbreaking ideas for the iPhone, tablets and more. In both cases, what mattered most about their ideas was how transformative they would be. So a big part of any goal is visualizing it. With a shared vision of the future, and thanks to our uniquely human ability to imagine things that have not happened yet, we can make things real. The visionary leadership many people have is a catalyst for sharing ideas that later turn into concrete action.

Another fundamental element is fear of failure. Seen in a positive light, failure can give us the best lessons for trying again and again until we succeed. Failure may be the biggest obstacle to starting anything. It is surrounded by limiting beliefs, bad advice and a host of mistaken ideas that discourage even the first step forward. We should see failure as our main ally. Without it, we would not have the great advances in medicine, art, science and culture we enjoy today. I can imagine how many times Michelangelo may have ruined a sculpture, how many times Homer had to rework a verse of the Iliad, how many times Cervantes threw out a passage of Don Quixote, or how many artists have tossed out a work they had poured months of their time into. The key to failure has been getting back up and, with what was learned, creating something better than before. Failure is the main tool for iterating on our goals again and again.

You have probably also heard that "the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time," or "divide and conquer." Another big challenge is that the elephants we build in our minds are much bigger than the real ones. Our minds can make situations unimaginably huge, and combined with fear of failure, they often paralyze us. The key is to break the goal into pieces and simply start. Taking the first step becomes critical to getting our goals underway. I work with several leaders whose defining trait, when objectives are on the table, is that they dive into whatever has to come first. They don’t jump in just for the sake of it. They know that what lies ahead is a challenge best eaten by taking the first bite, the first step. Another key point is that we are often unaware of what is in our hands to do. We focus on what we cannot control, which is another thing that paralyzes us. The alternative is to focus on "OK, this is what I can control, however small it may seem, and it is what I can do right now." With that clear, and knowing that even doing what is in our hands we may get it wrong and still learn from it, we are tending to the most important part of any goal: getting started.

Along the way we will hear all kinds of voices, siren songs like "you can’t do it," "you’ve tried this before," "that’s not the way to go," "if I were you I’d do something else," "why don’t you stop dreaming and do something else?" Surrounding ourselves with the right people is another important part of reaching our objectives. Their role is to give us objective support for the hard moments, and telling us what we want to hear is no part of it. This is where people are increasingly aware of the role a coach can play in partnering with a person or a team as they work toward their objectives. A leader’s life is often solitary. It is a road traveled with many people and many teams, yet deep down it is a solitary life that demands a great deal of focus, especially to resist the sirens’ song, like Ulysses on his way home, who even had himself tied to the ship’s mast and covered his ears and eyes. Along the way we must learn to quiet those voices, and to do that we need to be clear about our purpose and about why we are doing what we want to achieve.

Every step deserves to be celebrated. I don’t mean nonstop celebration as if it were a party. I mean that every time we achieve something, however small, we should acknowledge it and acknowledge whoever achieved it. The power and meaning of celebrating achievements can also live in a very personal space. We can celebrate in silence and realize that recognition is part of feeling good. Just as we are capable of tearing ourselves apart over a mistake and pouring so much negative energy into it, it is striking how a little energy, since celebrating takes far less, can have a greater impact on our well-being and on the well-being of others.

We are about to close the first quarter of the year, and you surely set yourself personal or professional objectives. How much have you reflected on tracking and reaching your goals? Are your objectives aligned with a greater purpose? With your life purpose?

Have a good Sunday and a great start to the week.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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