How to Achieve a Big Idea

Do you have an “outrageous” goal that you’re not taking action on? If so, you’re not alone. Most people have dreams as a child but by the time they’re twenty-five or younger they decide they need to “grow up and be a responsible adult.” That’s likely why Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." 

Early on when I’m working with a client, I ask them, “Do you have a dream or an outrageous goal you’ve buried or put on the back burner?” When they say “Yes” (and that’s often) I ask, “What has stopped you from at least moving towards your dream?” The answer is always the same, even if the details are different. Clients tell me they had either forgotten about their dream or put it on the back burner because of lack of money, time, support from others, or “It’s just not realistic.” 

That’s more than sad; it’s tragic. It’s tragic because we live our lives as if it’s not tragic. We live our lives as if it’s normal and just the way it is. It might be normal but it’s not just the way it is. It’s simply the way we’ve been taught, conditioned to think and live, and it’s the way we’ve accepted.

It’s not a lack of money, time or a lack of support from others that keeps us from moving towards our deepest desires. I’m going to share with you one of the biggest reasons why we settle for far less than what we’re capable of becoming and achieving: You unknowingly turn something that's possible into something that's impossible. The most common way we do that is to overwhelm ourselves with the size of the goal or dream instead of taking it one step at a time.

If you've been doing that here's what you can do instead:

Identify a “first step” that is ridiculously easy to take. 

Recently I had a client who had a life-long dream of taking her family to Greece for three months. That’s where her grand-parents lived and where her parent grew up. The problem was she’d been thinking about this for twenty years without doing anything about it. Why is that? She told me she couldn’t even think of taking three months off until she retired. It was just impossible. Here's what I suggested to her:

Don’t let the hard steps stop you from taking the easy steps: 

I told her she could do what she dreamed of doing much sooner than she thought. Of course, she asked me how. I replied, “I don’t have a clue how. I just know from experience that it’s possible.” Then I asked her what would be a small action step she could take to make her outrageous goal come to life. In four minutes (I timed it) she came up with solutions to move her towards her “impossible” goal. 

The easy steps she came up with were: Begin a special savings account. Talk to a travel agent and get an estimate of what her goal is going to require financially. Put pictures of Greece up on her refrigerator, bathroom mirror, in her purse. Tell a few trusted friends of her goal and the small steps she’s taking and ask if they have any ideas to accelerate her progress. Build relationships with distant family members in Greece.

My client can begin these things without much effort at all. They are all ridiculously easy things to do—at least she said they were for her. You might be thinking, “If I do what you suggest and start taking small steps, it won’t make a difference. Even if they did, it will take me ten years to make it happen.” 

How do you know it won’t make a difference?

Stop talking yourself out of your dream. Start talking and acting your way towards it. Each tiny step will bring you new ideas, inspiration and the resources you need on some level. You might not know how to reach your outrageous goal in terms of knowing everything that will be required of you, but I know you can identify the first small steps you can take action on this week.

Remember what Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe said: “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

- Alan Allard, Executive Coach