Last week, I was privileged to speak at two very different events. The first was a Big Goal workshop at Feltham Young Offenders Prison; the other was Big Goal speech at a business event. When I speak about Big Goals I am passionate about helping others to achieve what they want in their lives. What I found really interesting was that at one of the events there was a large part of the audience that felt that not everyone had Big Goals – “this isn’t really relevant to me”.
You might be thinking I’m talking about the young offenders when I say I spoke to a group who didn’t think Big Goals were relevant. It was completely the opposite. The young men in prison had real vision and passion for the things they wanted to achieve in their lives, even though they were starting from a much tougher place than many. Theirs were not all Big Dreams. Although some were amazing – like becoming a professional racing driver or footballer – some were much simpler Big Goals, like starting a family or their own business.
Over the last four years, I have worked with people with a real variety of Big Goals, from starting a family or finding a partner, leaving corporate life and starting their own business, to taking on big sporting challenges or speaking in front of large audiences.
I strongly believe two things:
- We all have Big Goals we want to achieve
- We can achieve anything we want to with the right focus, energy and strategy.
What I realised last week was that as we are sometimes afraid to admit that we have Big Goals – that we have Big Dreams that we want to achieve. I believe this happens for two reasons:
- Because we have been conditioned not to shoot for Big Goals – it hasn’t worked before, so why would it work now!
- Because we are afraid to fail – we don’t want to shoot for a Big Goal and then not achieve it. That would be embarrassing we would feel like a failure.
A few years ago, I was doing a speech to a company about going for your Big Goals in life. One lady asked me, “What if I set a Big Goal and I fail? I would feel like a failure and I don’t know whether I could handle that”.
But what if you went for your Big Goal and achieved it? How would that make you feel? What would that mean in all areas of your life? When you achieve a Big Goal in one area it builds the “muscle” of confidence that then gives you the ability to grow in all areas of your life.
What if you had the goal of doubling your income from, say, £30k a year to £60k a year, and you went for it with all your energy and passion. Let’s say you didn’t achieve £60k a year – you only achieved £55k. Would you have failed? Personally, that doesn’t seem like a failure to me. You just found a way to increase your income by 83%!
So, my realisation from last week and my message to those reading this blog is please don’t be afraid of declaring and focusing on your Big Goal. Be proud and bold, and go for it – because I know you can achieve whatever you decide you want to focus on.
If you would like to know how to achieve your Big Goal, book a place at one of my Big Goal Workshops – or check out my book, Yucan: Achieve any Big Goal using the 7P formula for success.
