Now that we've identified our talents for our Zone of Genius in last week's article (if you haven't, click here to do it), the next step is turn these into achievable goals. Goal setting is very important to making our dreams become reality. Without goals, it is hard, if not impossible, to achieve anything significant in life. On the large scale, could you imagine the Apollo missions to the moon ever having success without sequential goals being set and met? Or on a more personal level when we go to purchase something large such as a house or a car or have to turn in a big book report for school, all of these items have an end goal with incremental steps that have to be met along the way. If you apply the same basic techniques to achieving your Zone of Genius, you can achieve virtually anything. All you need is a written down plan with clear set goals, a positive attitude, and a will to achieve the goal.To help us get our dream job, here are two great exercises that we can use from the book, “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time” by Brian Tracy. All you need for these two exercises is a pen/pencil and paper.
Make a Plan
Take your list of your own Zone of Genius jobs that you identified in last week's exercise and identify that one job that if you did it, would give you the most joy in life. Imagine where you would like to be a year from now doing this job and write it at the top of the paper as if you are already doing it. Examples: "I have 15 clients in my landscaping business and I'm doing awesome!", “I have 10 contracts to build custom kitchen cabinets and am loving what I'm doing!". The statement should be positive and affirming. Now, consider this statement as your goal, your guiding vision that will get you where you want to be.
Now take 30 minutes and do the following. These 30 minutes could be the most valuable use of your time in quite a while:
- Make a list of everything that you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your Zone of Genius job.
- Set a realistic deadline for it. Set sub-deadlines as necessary
- Keep updating and building your list until it is complete.
- Make sure you include personal development items in your plan as not only will you be transforming your life into your dream job, you will also be transforming yourself. Always set aside time to learn and develop yourself to be the best you that you can be so that you will be in the best condition to help you achieve your goal.
- Organize it by priority and sequence
- Take action on the plan. Do something every single day that moves you towards that goal.
Make Daily Lists
Make making lists a habit. Many of us frequently make lists of what we need to do for the day: grocery shop, take the kids to an after school program, things that need to be done for a project at work, things that we need for a certain class in school. These are examples of typical lists. However, we need to start including items that need to be completed in order to achieve our goal in these lists.
If you don’t make lists - Start. Lists are key to getting you what you want in life. If you are already in the habit of making lists, great - now just make sure that you include your Zone of Genius goal in it every day and prioritize it. Make sure you always take care of the biggest most important items first and see them to completion. Resist the temptation to take care of small things first. If you routinely do the small things first and place them over your dream job, it will take you forever to get where you want to go.
On the first of every month, make a monthly list of the things that you need to do for your goal, then once a week make a weekly list of the things you need to get done for that week and then every night before you go to bed, make a list of what you need to get done for tomorrow. The couple of minutes that you spend here every night will help you accomplish so much more than the average person will do who does not have clear written down goals and lists spelling out what needs to be done.
One last item achieving your Zone of Genius job: be patient and positive! Confucius once said, “The journey of a thousand leagues begins with one step.” Take one step towards your goal every day and you’ll be amazed at where you’ll be in the weeks and months ahead!