| Setting tight, actionable deadlines for your dreams is the only way to make them reality. Waiting until some milestone in the future before acting dissolves your goals into wishful thinking.
It is so important to:
- focus on a goal (a block of cheese),
- break it up into digestible bites (like cheese on a cracker),
and then - leave that cracker sitting on the counter, allowing dust, mould, and OTHER RATS to pick at it...?
Think back to when you were a kid.
You were very clear about what you wanted to be.
What you wanted to have.
And what you wanted to do. - "I want... I want... cotton candy every day for breakfast!"
- "I want to be a fireman! And a superhero!
- "Can I be President, Mom? And invisible?? Can I?"
No matter what it was, your parents would smile and indulge you.
Was this because they were giving their whole-hearted support for your "true calling" of the moment?
No.
Was this because you had worn them down with persuasive logic and passion?
Hardly.
Was it because you hadn't set a finite schedule to what you had just proclaimed, and they knew that without a deadline, they didn't have to worry about it actually happening?
...
Now we're on to something.
Fast forward to college.
Some of you out there were as organized as can be. You had all your work done in enough time to ask the professor for extra credit work. Everything was indexed and collated. You had even read ahead to upcoming chapters, and started on those projects. You were unruffled. You were un-rushed. Cooler than the other side of the pillow.
Most of the rest of us (like me) were plagued by deadlines! There always seemed to be so much to do, that only the things with looming deadlines got done! So much to do, so little time!
Well, how could you manage to pass any of your classes, if so many papers were completed the night before they were due?
Here's a little known secret, that our minds understand, but most of us don't.
When your mind has a very short time to accomplish something, it cuts out all the fat.
It cuts out all the fluff.
If it isn't in panic mode (which, unfortunately, does happen from time-to-time), it gains a laser-like clarity, and shuts out all other stimuli.
And it gets things done.
This isn't to say that you can churn out volumes of quality work with a looming deadline. But it is to say that you absolutely CAN and WILL focus on only the most essential of tasks in order to get the job at hand done. And you will get it done.
Let's tie this all together, now.
If you have lofty life goals for yourself (as you should), but don't break them up into digestible pieces with very short deadlines... your pie-in-the-sky dreams will stay in the sky.
We often marvel at ultra-successful people. By and large, they are ultra-successful not because their brains are bigger than ours. or their hearts stronger than ours. (Exception: Lance Armstrong, the multiple champion of Tour De France, has a heart that is 33% larger than the average man's.)
They are ultra-successful because they set lofty goals, with tight deadlines. And then their minds were forced to focus on the bare minimum of tasks necessary to get the job done.
Try it today.
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