Aspirations versus… Learning and progress…

Aspirations versus …actionable goals

 

Aspirations are fine and can lead to a lot of important accomplishments. But sometimes like our dream as a kid to be a professional baseball player or fireman, they can also lead to long forgotten intentions that were either unrealistic or just never properly followed up on.

Our grown-up aspirations today are also fine, but in the absence of a plan to accomplish them they’re like “you-know-whating” in one hand and wishing in the other!

We need to assess aspirations critically to be sure they’re both realistic and attainable. Otherwise it’s a lot like hoping to hit the Power Ball. If they pass that test, then we have to ask ourselves if they are “affordable” in terms of our available resources. If that twenty-unit nursing home chain has operations well outside the geography that we can cover, maybe it’s a stretch a bit too far.

Finally we have to distinguish between a goal and an aspiration. One is specific, like closing that active prospect by December. The other is a lot more general like doubling the profitability of your territory in five years.

Both are great but the first one lends itself to much more immediate planning, while a five year goal of doubling profits will require a lot more detail to even begin the planning stage.

Learning and progress…Two peas in a pod

So, what new thing did you learn today? When it comes to what we need to know, learning never stops – or at least it shouldn’t. Sure we all know a lot and what we already know is certainly enough to get the job done. After all we’ve been pretty successful thus far, right?

Ah, but maybe it’s that something that we don’t know – and that we don’t know that we don’t know that can take us to that next plateau.

Could our limited understanding of bean counting be our limiting factor. If so, buy an accounting for dummies book and read it. Perhaps your less than stellar public speaking ability makes conducting effective group employee training sessions difficult. So, maybe you should join a group like Toastmasters International and become the better public speaker you’d love (and need) to be.

Whatever that limiting factor might be, we need to understand it and then make (and execute) a plan to both address and most importantly, strengthen it. By shoring up that Achilles Heel we might not make ourselves invincible, but we can sure win more and do it more often.

Next up: Finding those unknown unknowns.