“If I’ve learned anything from you it’s that New Year’s Resolutions are stupid!” my good mate Terry wrote me.
I agree with me 🙂 they can be stupid and also can be stupidly powerful when you’re setting “real” goals.
The difference comes back to this word “Resolution” and your level of resolve.
80% of Resolutions are quit by February 15 when you achieve everything with limitless resolve.
So let them make flakey Resolutions while you live limitless goals.
Limitless goals
If you are certain that you will achieve your goal then it’s never a goal.
That’s where many people are stuck in life avoiding any fear of failure never stretching for any goals.
Goals don’t have to be of the BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) variety but it is a lot more fun this way!
It’s good to be realistic about what’s possible and also good to ask yourself just how good can it get?
Like Jeff Bezos in 1994 watching the internet growing at 2,300% a year he wasn’t certain where it was headed but was convinced to make a bold bet.
Certainly it would have been a stretch goal just to get Amazon started and build a dominant online bookstore but Jeff Bezos had his sights set on a grander vision.
Grander vision
Having a grander vision is different to setting goals.
Because at the level of vision like Martin Luther King Jr. having a dream you’re never realistic in how you achieve your vision.
At the level of vision you open your mind to just what might be possible if you are willing to back your dream with limitless resolve.
Like Elon Musk on Christmas Eve 2008 with Tesla and SpaceX on the brink of bankruptcy with your goals lighting up your vision you always find a way to drive through.
All the time Elon Musk talks about how he wasn’t just fighting to keep his babies alive but for bringing to life his grander vision for our sustainable future as a multi-planetary species.
Your vision?
What is your vision for 2025 and for your life?
Right now how do you feel about where you’re at and what is possible for you?
Do you have a grand vision or BHAG or whatever you might call it for what you’re looking to achieve?
Have you defined goals that build to your vision?
Or have you been more focused on realistic goals?
Real good
Having any goals whatsoever already puts you waaaaay ahead of many people.
And even the most basic and realistic goals can achieve incredible things for you.
It’s like my client Marty who left his career to bet on himself and build his own firm.
He’s a realistic fellow, very diligent, excellent dotter of the i’s and crosser of the t’s, a precise, real detail-oriented CEO, which has enabled him to build a top notch company.
So when he spoke with me about his goals for 2025 it was no surprise that he had the numbers all laid out for what the business could realistically achieve.
“Draw a line”
I love precision.
So many things in life God is in the details as I prefer to say.
On the brain and mind control for instance you want to get down to every single line of code.
But when it comes to unleashing all of your potential and unlocking all that is possible you never want to start precise.
“Like Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream start with your Grandest Vision,” I said to Marty.
“And now draw a line across your page and beneath your realistic goals lay out your stretch goals,” I suggested to him.
Stretch
The basic way of looking at goals is that they are for what you want to achieve.
But goals are for who you want to forge yourself to be.
If a goal doesn’t stretch you to become a better version of you then, really, honestly, who cares, how lame!?
And I suggested to Marty that his stretch goals should reflect just how far he and his firm can stretch to grow and achieve in 2025.
He liked this and responded with lots of ways that he can stretch his potential beyond his realistic goals.
So I stretched again.
Unrealistic goals
One thing that I’ve had to figure out is who I choose to be in our world.
Because over decades of doing this work I’ve struggled to fit into any of the obvious moulds.
Like nearly everything that you see in this world of personal development is so basic and banal when to me the point of all this stretching is setting your sights stupidly unrealistic.
I’d never needed any of that basic stuff to leap from working at KFC to Goldman Sachs but what I really needed to know was how do you actually achieve what you truly want in life?
Even if it’s not possible, certainly if it’s not realistic, how do you unleash all of your potential and unlock all that is possible for you?
So I suggested to Marty that he draw another line across his page and lay out his unrealistic goals for 2025.
Stupidly unrealistic
One of the greatest things about doing video calls is that you can see people’s reactions.
Marty loved the idea of setting unrealistic goals but you could see the confused look on his face how this fits with his dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s.
Just talking through this for a few minutes you could see him getting excited and his brain starting to see new ways that unrealistic things could be realistic, and even possible.
“Exactly, I said to him,” he dislikes Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos so I reminded him of what was achieved because Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed.
Then I suggested that so long as he’s going this far he draw another line across his page and lay out his stupidly unrealistic goals for 2025.
Happy new year
The most wonderful thing about the new year is that you can start fresh.
Those things that you used to think or do can be different this new year including what you believe is possible for you.
I’m not here suggesting that stupidly unrealistic goals are right for you or are possible in every way.
But I’d say that relative to all those people who’ll soon be quitting their Resolutions you’re way better to back your stupidly unrealistic goals with limitless resolve.
Who knows, you may even achieve your happy stupidly unrealistic new year!
