Blog #207
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
Last week, there were three separate occasions when the Henry Ford quote came to my mind, and I pondered just how impactful this line of thinking can be. Shifting to this thoughtful approach can impact entire organizations, departments, individuals…even non-business relationships. In this two-part post, we will go through five steps that help to ensure you can and will reach your goals.
The more I work with teams, leaders, and to be perfectly candid, myself, the more I 100% believe and embrace setting and reaching goals. In fact, if you adjust your thinking, dream about, visualize, and capture your goals, you will truly attain them. It may be the single most important change individuals can make in their lives.
This blog will outline three ways to improve the likelihood of you achieving what you want.
- Dream big. I mean huge. Go nuts! I love to say that extraordinary lives in the land of the unreasonable – and I mean it. I believe we live in the most abundant times ever and the only limit to what we can achieve is what we can dream. For your organization, it could be to become the best in the world, to be the biggest within an industry, to have the greatest possible impact, or to reach a certain dollar volume in sales. It needs to genuine and real for you and your team. As individuals, it could be starting your own business, reaching a certain level of fitness, buying something huge, or having some form of an impact on others. Again, it is important to reiterate that the dream needs to be genuine and real for you and/or your partner.
From this point, write it out in as simple of terms as possible. You don’t have to be specific yet, and you certainly don’t have to know how you are going to get there, but you do need to put a flag in the ground and decide where you are going. Once you know and believe you can, you are already halfway there.
- Visualize it. Write it out and be specific – as in the date you will achieve it, what it will feel like, where you will be, how you will know, what work will you have to do to achieve it, etc. Get granular and be specific!
I was recently invited to join a small group of leaders from around the world that gets together with the specific intention of having a positive impact and helping others (Thanks, JD Messinger). We are given pieces of homework, exercises, and research to get started; one of these exercises was to go through a stream of consciousness writing exercise with the intention of writing out what your future dream will look like.
I help teams, individuals, and couples with this sort of thing, but I had not been instructed to do it in this manner. I have to say, I liked it. JD has a big brain and there is a lot of science behind this activity, so here is my hillbilly version:
Once you have identified where you want to go in very simple terms, sit down and write out (ideally with pen and paper) what that will look like. Don’t worry about how you will get there. Take 5-15 minutes and let your stream of consciousness go.
- Say it. Once you have completed the first two steps, read your answer aloud to yourself. Science suggests that touching these thoughts three times will empower things to happen.
First: Think it.
Second: Write it.
Third: Speak it.
Are you intrigued with the idea of dreaming big? Do you need some guidance in learning how to visualize your dream? Look no further! Contact us today to find out how.
