Dream It and Achieve It: My 7 Tools for Success – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

"A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a task are the hope of the world." Inscription on a church wall in Sussex, England, c. 1730

Inscripción en la pared de una iglesia en Sussex Inglaterra c. 1730

Closing out 2018 fully devoted to my own projects was a dream I set back in 2008. Back then I was in a very important stage of study in my life (my master’s degree), and a document came my way, a gem like everything that comes out of there, written by several INCAE professors. It was a guide to designing my own future. That’s when I knew when I’d devote myself to my own projects. I committed to it, and I’ve worked all these years to get there.

We all have hopes of different kinds: dreams we wanted to fulfill as kids, goals we want to reach, decisions we need to make, steps we’d like to take, or knowing where we want to steer our lives. The essence of doing or deciding all of this lies at the two ends of planning and execution, and some key enablers that have helped me are responsibility, commitment, involvement and, above all, the purpose of what we want to achieve.

I put responsibility first because we own our destiny. On commitment versus involvement, I once heard a metaphor about bacon and eggs: "the chicken is involved, the pig is committed." And I wrote about purpose in a recent post.

Here are the tools that have helped me plan and execute in my own life:

1. Planning my short, medium and long-term goals: an exercise where I set out what I’d like to be doing or have achieved in 5, 10 and 20 years. It’s been a framework I review and adjust every year to get back on course, and it helps me stay focused
2. Book: The 4 Disciplines of Execution. This is where I saw the gap between strategy and execution. Its tools are a widely proven solution in business, and above all it deals with something essential to executing any goal, personal or professional: discipline
3. Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I saw my dad reading it at least 20 years ago. Ideas as basic as beginning with the end in mind, thinking win-win and sharpening the saw marked my life and have been key to building habits
4. Book: The Speed of Trust. Trust is one of the virtues we value and want most. It’s an engine that moves the world in every field (capital markets, for example). As the subtitle says, it’s "the one thing that changes everything"
5. Book: Principles. It may already be one of my favorite books. It’s a huge work of art that the author, Ray Dalio, has published and made available to the world: the personal and professional principles that have guided his life and his firm, Bridgewater Associates
6. God, family and friends: entrusting myself and all my plans to God is and has been the foundation of my life. So is surrounding myself with people I know will give me the best advice (often contrary to how I think), which in most cases lets me make the best decision
7. Having a coach: it marked a moment in my life when all my plans, ideas, dreams and hopes came together and made sense. It was the key step I took to find "the how" to execute everything I had once planned

What have you always wanted to achieve? What tools help you reach what you long for? What are you doing to reach your goals?

A hug and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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