IMPOSSIBLE GOALS OR DOING THE DOABLE

Katherine and I sort of had a fight this weekend....or maybe I've been fighting with myself about this.

My anxiety was up, my brain felt caught in a loop of not knowing what to do next, feeling like I wasn't enough of a man to make my wife's dreams come true, etc.

Two concepts that I've learned from my coaches seem to apply... one is Rich Litvin's - Set an Impossible Goal. The other is Steve Chandler's - Do the Doable. Both of these guys run events and long duration programs that bring together 40-60 of the sharpest and most action-oriented coaches out there. I've had a chance to study and to work with both of them and the high caliber achievers they attract. Finding a tribe of other people who get it done is awesome.

Anyway, the challenge with our thinking this weekend centered around buying a 2nd home/cottage in Maine.

We have been wrestling (conceptually) with this for quite a while. Katherine grew up in Maine, her twin is there and she NEEDS to go visit or she goes crazy. She loves being there for 1-2 weeks at a time and quite frankly, I do too.

But what happens is... visualizing what we both want and creating a plan to make it happen has been difficult on this one.

I can totally get all "spun up" and "befuddled;" my brain electric circuits are firing randomly and weird and I get stressed out. Then, the "You're not a REAL man like you see on the internet" thoughts fire up and I'm moody; I don't get much done, I sit and don't know what to do next or who to talk to. That is exactly what I experienced this weekend.

So.... here is where the 2 concepts come in - they apply to life and to business; I don't know about you, but they all mix for me. When I think of something "big" in our personal lives, business gets involved because I need to figure out how to have enough time for everything and I need to think of how to build something that will create the cash flow to make it happen.

Impossible Goals - Rich Litvin says that High Performers should set "Impossible Goals". The research I've done supports this. Books like "The Big Leap" and "The War of Art" support this, I believe. We need to set visions/goals SO BIG that we can then tell our reptile brain that basically we are not that serious. It is so impossible that there is nothing to be afraid of. I encourage you to read more about Impossible Goals.   

If you'd like to talk to me about setting these, this is something I love doing with my 1:1 clients and that we will do in BBCamp Mastermind periodically as well.

The trick is to REALLY SET A GOAL THAT YOU CAN CONVINCE the part of your brain that gets afraid and freaked out that you don't really mean it.... that it's Impossible.

So back to Katherine and I, we have the farm, as you know, and there is a lot going on here and I like it. It isn't really something I'd try to create a job for and get a groundskeeper for...maybe someday, but not now. I like feeding pigs, weed-eating, and teaching Thomas to do those things and giving him responsibility. But... it's quite a bit of work.  

We were looking at these $400-$600,000 lake houses. That is both a significant sum of money and those houses represent a lot of work to me. Even if I delegate and hire someone or a management company - some of you know that takes work too.

The challenge with this type of lake house for me is that it DOESN'T seem Impossible. It seems like if I put on my big boy pants, really buckle down, get a coach and explain what I'm up to, work hard and be focused everyday, we COULD do this! We could make the money and hire the people and deal with both... but my Reptile brain (Amygdala, aka Fight or Flight) really got fired up over all this. I am telling you that the circuitry was frazzled and not working right. I was retreating to my office and writing down "How do I make the money" stuff and was being moody. Not cool.

So - my Impossible Goal needs to be bigger and farther out or I need to set the lake house goal in such a way that I can convince my brain it is a whimsical dream and I don't really mean it.

Because as the other High Performer coach Steve Chandler says...  we need to slow down and just DO the Doable. We need to get started every day. We need to take small steps and small actions. It can't seem too threatening. He says a truck driver gets up and just drives every day. He does the doable.

When I am doing the doable I can get a LOT done. When I look at what Katherine and I (with the help of many others) have built in life, it's all been done one day at a time, one move at a time, one decision at a time, one shovel full of dirt at a time, one outreach to a prospective client at a time, one board room presentation (when we sold dad's company) at a time...and even something like that - doing a board room presentation - was done one PowerPoint slide at a time, one practice run at a time, and when we were building the company - one executed lumpy mail campaign at a time.

We need to slow down and Do the Doable.

So where Katherine and I got yesterday... actually during parking lot church - is how about we take a look at some smaller 800 SF cottages in a community that has a home owner's association. There are cottages that have been rented on VRBO and AirBnB for years. I wouldn't need to maintain much if anything. It's a way to step into 2nd home ownership. It's Doing the Doable.

Suddenly... I felt ok... suddenly I wasn't so muddled. Suddenly I could think about the next smallest actionable step to having a cottage like that. I called a friend who has rental real estate to start asking questions. I messaged a realtor friend and past attendee at Turkey Camp to see what his thoughts were. I started thinking about who the next Business Builder Camp mastermind member I could serve at $500/month could be.

Doing the doable. Breaking it down feels good. This isn't "playing small" or "playing it safe"....

This morning I wrote about my "Impossible Goal" - it is bigger than a lake house in Maine. It does indeed seem impossible and yet I can also think about who I would need to BE to make it happen.

It's a tricky thing, this building stuff that doesn't yet exist, and creating a life of our dreams, a life that benefits those we serve - our clients, our employees, the contractors and coaches we hire, our community. But - it's Fun!

Business and Life building and living a life of intention is what I want to do. I love having other men in my life who also think this way and who dream impossible dreams and then take small steps to keep moving forward.