Going from Impossible to Given

From Impossible to Given

All of us have dreams… Lives that we wish we were living, the lives that we wish were true.. today. But there’s always a gap between what we wish was true and what is.

The delta. Between the vision of the life we wish we had, and the life we have.

For me that delta had always been between the allure of entrepreneurship and the comfort of a stable job. That was until 3 months ago.

The vision of building something from the ground up that is valuable, improves the lives of lots of people and is used by a lot of people. However, whenever the thought of starting would cross my mind, Self-doubt would be the first thing to creep in. Various shades of “Impossible” will come to mind - “You’ll look like a fool”, “Who are you to think that you can pull this off”, “It doesn’t matter if other’s have done it before, you’ve never done it before”, “How? How are you going to this?”.

I’m sure I’m not alone. When it comes to chasing our dreams, a certain beast of failure grabs us, engulfs us and makes us immobile (for years, maybe decades).

It’s very hard to shake this feeling of “impossible” but I found a good framework in the book 12 Week Year that I recently read.

It describes that the journey from Impossible to Given is 4 steps -

Impossible → Possible → Probable → Given

Here's some info on how to progress from one stage to another -

Step 1 - From Impossible to Possible

The mistake that we typically make is that when we are at the “Impossible” stage we start asking “How” questions.

• How are you going to do it?
• How are you going to find customers?
• How are you going to pay for the bills?

The problem is that at this stage you don’t know how. It’s obvious, isn’t it? You have never done it before, so you don’t know how you will do it (yet). A "how” question at this stage shuts you down, it blocks you from the possibility.

A better question to ask is “what if”.

• What if it were possible.
• What if I could do it?
• What will my life look like?

These questions open up your mind, give you a sense of purpose, help you clarify your Why. They help you move from “Impossible” to “Possible”.

Step 2 - From Possible to Probable

Once you are at the “Possible” stage, when you can already create a picture and visualize that future for yourself, then and only then the “how” questions come in.

At this stage, the how questions are constructive -

• How did the other person do it?
• How can I do it?
• Maybe even Who can help me with this?

These how questions help you define a plan, series of steps that you can foresee, that will take you to your destination.

Step 3 - From Probable to Given

Once you have the plan, then it comes to execution and monitoring.

You laid out the plan, now the question is how fast can you execute it, how disciplined can you be. Of course, things won’t go as planned. They never do. This is where you go back to the vision and the why defined in first step.

I read this quote, “Plans are useless, but planning is invaluable”. So if things go wrong, you remember why you started, make corrections to your plan and plough through.

Once you are executing well, and you start seeing the results, that’s when you’ve crossed over from Impossible to Possible to Probable to Given.

Well done, you've done the impossible!