The Five Requirements of Achieving Anything

Whether your goal is to put a man on the moon or just beat next quarter's sales targets, the fundamental requirements of achieving any goal are the same. Here's how I know.

Throughout my life, I have been most fortunate to have been immersed in two different, yet distinctly similar networks of people, both of which would shape who I became as an athlete, as a professional, and as a leader.

What I learned from my exposure to these two groups, were the most important characteristics of ultra high-performing individuals, the methods and best practices they executed to achieve their success, and most importantly, I learned how I could apply the processes that drove their success to goals I was committed to achieving.

Growing up as a kid in Sydney, Australia, participation in sport was a foundational part of my upbringing. On most days though, and certainly every weekend, I was engaging or interacting with people who were out to achieve something big. I've subsequently lost count of the number of my friends, or close family acquaintances who were either Olympians, World or National Champions, professional athletes, or who were well on their way to becoming one or more of them.

Being surrounded by these highly successful people not only inspired me to begin setting my own goals but more crucially, it provided me a unique vantage point from which to learn how they achieved their success.

When I moved to the United States to begin my professional career, I fortuitously joined one of the most highly regarded and successful companies in America. Verizon.

During 15 years with this incredible organization, I was exposed to some of the finest leaders, and most skillful professionals in the world, in a corporate culture built around performance excellence, teamwork, and professional development. Working my way up through the company, I focused on trying to understand what it was that made these professionals and leaders so different from the rest, how they thought about their work, how they operated, and ultimately what made them so effective.

From all of these experiences, the direct exposure to these leaders, and having seen 'behind the curtain', I hope to share with you how you can leverage what I witnessed and experienced to blaze your trail, to create and achieve your own goals, and to succeed in whatever your endeavors may be.

The Five Requirements of Achieving Anything

A clear vision of success has the power to inspire, challenge, and bring together individuals, teams, and organizations under a common, unifying purpose.

President John. F. Kennedy's 1962 'Moonshot' speech at Rice University is my favorite example of how a clear, inspiring vision enables achievement.

Kennedy's speech was more than just a goal. but a call to action for the entire country. At the time, Sputnik had been launched, Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space, but the US was not about to cede leadership of space to any country, least of all the Soviet Union.

Kennedy's incredible speech took the country on a journey from the beginning of human history to the present, demonstrating why this goal was so important and helped the country to rally around a decade long commitment requiring elements that had not yet been invented, a goal that would be incredibly costly, and one fraught with the risk of lives being lost in the effort.

Kennedy knew that this bold vision of success would be required to create something incredibly powerful, which was to harness the combined power of the country into one massive unified effort.

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

Those who achieve big goals create their own North Star, their own vision of success, and they let nothing deter them from pursuing it.

A former school teacher from Massachusetts became so moved by the lack of organization and support for injured soldiers, some of whom she had taught as children, returning from civil war battlefields, that she committed herself to help.

Clara Barton's unwavering commitment to caring for soldiers injured in the civil war saw her lobby for months to even be granted access to the battlefields where her help was most desperately needed, She defied conventional norms of the time, along with military regulations, by secretly moving to the front lines with her supplies the night before the battle of Antietam, which proved to be the single costliest day of battle in US history at that time.

Her bravery and commitment led to Barton being known as the 'Angel of the battlefield'.

This commitment to those who served continued long after the war itself, with Barton helping to locate over 23,000 missing and dead prisoners of war, along with founding and leading the American Red Cross, an organization that subsequently helped millions more.

To be successful in your goals, the achievement itself must be so personally important to you, that you're fully prepared to fight through obstacles and challenges to do what's necessary to achieve it.

In 49 BC, Julius Caesar became an outlaw of the Roman Republic when he and his army crossed the Rubicon river into Italy, proclaiming “ālea iacta est” (Let the die be cast).

Success in your objectives requires decisive and bold action on your part. Taking action compels you to move forward toward your objective one important step at a time. Your clear and focused actions help you achieve important milestones on your journey, while also minimizing the possibility of wavering in the face of adversity or turning back for fear of failure.

Ceasar's crossing of the Rubicon became a legendary metaphor and one to which leaders can look as they align their teams and organizations behind big initiatives. Similar to Cortez burning his ships when he reached the new world, the focus of the leader and the organization narrows to ensuring the path to their objective is clearly visible.

No goal in life, whether personal or professional, large or small, simple or complex, will ever be attained without the actions required to achieve the important milestones along the way.

For many years prior to Sir. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's summit of Mt. Everest, people gazed at the enormity of the mountain and questioned whether it could even be climbed.

In the years before this monumental goal was achieved, thirteen climbers had been known to have perished on the mountain, most famously, George Mallory, the British mountaineer noted by John F. Kennedy in his moonshot address.

This epic goal requires months, if not years of preparation, the right equipment, expert guidance, and a clear process of milestones that must be completed throughout the ascent to get to the summit.

As you're planning your own goals, ensure you have fully engaged your support network to make the achievement of your goals easier and mitigate the risk of failure. This support could come in a variety of forms such as direct support (i.e. your "Sherpas"), or the insights, tools, and coaching provided by those who've achieved similar goals before.

It's been said that you can go faster alone, but you'll go further (and higher) with the support of others. No matter the goal, objective, or challenge, you will always stand a better chance of achieving it when you enlist the support of others to help you get there.

At some point in our careers, we've seen others, or perhaps ourselves participate in the age-old pastime of 'passing the buck'. Whether hoping to avoid the repercussions of a bad decision or outcome, failing to be accountable for the role we must play in our objectives completes the five requirements of achieving any of the goals we embark upon.

President Harry S. Truman, most famous for his decision as President to deploy nuclear weapons to help expedite the end of the second world war, thus avoiding a costly invasion of Japan, would refuse to partake in such 'buck-passing'. In fact, he placed a visual reminder of his accountability on his desk in the oval office.

To achieve any goal, decisions must be made, action must be taken, and results must be delivered, which without accountability for the role we play eliminates a critical component of getting done what needs to be done.

One of my goals growing up was to go to the Olympics, but in order to do that, there were a series of milestones I needed to achieve along the way, each of which required me to be accountable for getting up at 4:30 each morning, spending countless hours training, and sacrificing many of the things my friends were able to do.

Accountability is an obligation. A willingness to accept responsibility for a role you play in an objective, or to account for one's actions in some way.

The responsibility was on me, not my coach, nor my family to ensure I was doing what was necessary to achieve my goals and those of my teammates. At age 14, I wrote myself a note on the beam of my bunk bed, knowing full well that every morning when my alarm went off, I would be forced to answer the same simple question.

"Do you want to be a ****ing World Champion or not?".

The answer to that question dictated whether I was indeed accountable for the control I had in the achievement of my goals and those of my teammates. It was at that moment where I would be forced to make a choice to either do what was required or make an excuse for why I couldn't.

Either way, the result of the goal rested on that decision, and at that moment.

Conclusion

Achievement is a process, but one where each of these critical factors must be deeply embedded in the goals you set, and the actions you take to achieve them. Lacking any of them will doom your goal to becoming a failed attempt, or a long-forgotten new year's resolution.

• Without a clear vision of success, there is no North Star to strive toward
• Without a deep commitment, obstacles or challenges become insurmountable
• Without action, the path between where you are and your goal will be unclear
• Without support, you'll miss out on the assistance that makes achievement easier
• Without accountability for the role you play, you won't do what's required to win

These critical pieces to the achievement puzzle must be part woven into your goal-setting process, and by doing so, you'll place yourself in the best possible position to succeed in your endeavors.

I have seen this process of success and failure play out time and time again with my own eyes and within my own career.

Whatever success I've been able to achieve so far has come from the lessons learned from others who walked this path before me. My hope is that you can utilize this framework as part of your own goal-setting strategy to set yourself, and your teams up to succeed.