We all have the seeds of hopes and dreams. But often, the seeds stay dormant, in their little paper seed packet, with a picture of the Hope on the outside. We take out the seed packet and look at the picture and say, “someday, I’ll have this Hope!” But it doesn’t happen. That’s because we need to take the seeds out of the package and plant them. Seeds don’t grow unless you plant them, and for some reason, they never say that on the seed packet. Hopes and dreams need to be planted in reality. That means turning Hopes into "Do's"—real life actions with real life deadlines and (bwah hah hah hah) real life consequences.
Choose an action
Next time you take out your seed packet of Hope, begin to plant it by brainstorming actions that will make your Hope come true. You don’t have to do those actions yet, but you do have to identify them specifically enough so you could get started if you wanted to.
“Someday I’ll live in a beautiful house!!” is a great hope, especially if you live in an ugly house with peeling fuschia paisley wallpaper. But it’s too dreamy and vague to lead to success.
What actions could you take to live in a beautiful house? Do some brainstorming. You could simply drive to a nicer neighborhood, find a house you like, and wait until you see the people who live there leave for the day. Then, just move right in. Eat the tasty food in their fridge, try out that amazing Tempur-pedic mattress, enjoy their 60" OLED flat-screen TV. It’ll be great!!! Those actions work great, but when the people come back, they tend to be a bit … testy. So the next day, you have to do it again with a different house.
But it gets hard to outrun the police day after day, so brainstorm more options. You could browse Craigslist, looking for places to rent. You could ask all your friends if they know anyone with a beautiful house who wants to sell it or rent out a room. Or call a realtor and look for a new place. Heck, you could take even more control of your life and buy a lot of toothpicks and glue, and build your own home from scratch.
Every one of those specific actions is a seed you can take as a starting point for achieving your dream. Congratulations! You’ve torn open the seed packet of your hope, and you’ve sprinkled the seeds on the garden of life.
Set a deadline
Now you have to fertilize those little suckers. Fertilize by setting a deadline for you to start taking action. If the actions you identified brainstorming are really big actions, then break a big action down into smaller actions. Then set a deadline for one of the smaller actions.
Since you’re just getting started, choose an action that’s small enough to be easily doable, but large enough that you’ll feel a real feeling of accomplishment and progress once you’ve done it.
Building an entire house out of toothpicks is a really big project. But buying toothpicks and building a test 1-foot by 1-foot section of wall is much more doable. You give yourself a deadline of this Saturday!
As you progress towards your Big Hope, you’ll want to break your project into manageable chunks and set a deadline for each chunk. And when you reach a deadline, for goodness’ sake, celebrate!
With your deadlines, you’ve watered the seeds of Hope. Now, it’s time to pile on the fertilizer.
Put consequences in place
Now it’s time for the carrot and the stick, rewards and punishments. The celebrations you have planned are the carrot. Reach your deadline, get a carrot. Easy-peasy. For goal-oriented people, all you need is carrots. Lots and lots of carrots. All that Vitamin A gives goal-oriented people great eyesight.
But if you’re like me, you occasionally need a bit of stick-based motivation, too. Put consequences in place for not taking the action you’ve identified.
If you’ve decided to create a test wall out of toothpicks as a first step in building your dream house, make sure there are consequences to not taking the action. Put $100 in a jar for your shmoopie. In the unlikely event that you don’t take action to build your toothpick wall, Shmoopie has permission to use the $100 to buy a polyester pants suit that matches your fuschia wallpaper. Then you have to wear the pants suit to work. With consequences like that, who needs the threat of secret military courts, mass surveillance, and “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Trust me. You’ll have those toothpicks in action lickity split.
You’ve sprinkled your seeds through brainstorming. You’ve watered them with deadlines.
You’ve sprinkled your seeds through brainstorming. You’ve watered them with deadlines. And consequences are the sweet, sweet fertilizer to help make sure they grow.
Don’t measure success based on outcome
One important subtlety: When you’re putting in place your celebrations and your consequences, don’t base them on your outcomes; base them on your effort. The point isn’t to have a toothpick wall completed. Heck, you might discover a toothpick wall isn’t even feasible for building your dream house (hint: it isn’t). Instead, success means taking action on Dream Home Hope. You only have to wear the pants suit—excuse me, get to wear the pants suit—if you fail to buy the toothpicks. And you’ve earned your celebration as long as you end up covered with toothpick splinters and glue and decide that next week, calling a realtor might be easier.
Turn your Hopes into Do's by brainstorming actions that will move you closer to your hopes. Give your actions deadlines, and give your deadlines consequences. Reward yourself for taking action, as long as that action is genuinely in pursuit of your hope. Soon, the garden of your hopes will grow big and strong. And with luck, you’ll make your dreams come true, even if none of your plants are Audrey IIs.
This is Stever Robbins. Follow GetItDoneGuy on Twitter and Facebook. I run programs to help people have Extraordinary Lives and extraordinary careers. If you want to know more, visit http://ift.tt/1l2uWN6.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar