Turn Your Dreams Into Goals - Part 5
(The Final Installment.)
Building a bridge.
As the fifth and final installment in this series, we’re going to put things together. We’re going to take some of those dreams, use the problems we discovered and the brainstormed solutions to build a bridge backward.
Making things doable.
In order for things to get doable, actions need to stretch from goals and subgoals right to something you can do today. Otherwise, everything stays in someday land.
Planning backwards allows you to become confident that you’re working on the right thing, ensures that your steps are the right size, and ensures you’re not getting ahead of yourself by leaping too big and creating way too much stress for yourself.
Can you do it tomorrow?
Once you have a goal and some ideas from your brainstorming that help you get to that goal, the question to ask is (and, once again, I’m borrowing this from Wishcraft by Barbara Sher), “Can I do it tomorrow?”
If the answer is “no”, then you ask, “what needs to be done first?” For example:
Goal: Become a best-selling novelist
I can’t because I don’t have x*: I’ve never written anything that paid me anything; I don’t have an agent; no one knows who I am.
Subgoals: Write a novel that will be popular, Get a literary agent, Create an audience who likes me.
Each of these are long-term goals. But, how great is it to know that you need an audience and you can start building one new, before your novel is written?
Can you create an audience tomorrow? Probably not. Why not? I don’t know how to build an audience for a novel when I don’t have one. The first step would be to research that question.
Breaking things down into subgoals can bring your excitement back.
Curiousity. Your new best friend.
Another goal is getting an Agent. It’s time to get curious. Instead of asking How Can I Get X (an agent), try asking “I wonder how I could get an agent.” Hmmm.
– Who are good literary agents and how might I find them?
– Are there any guides or resources that list literary agents?
– Do I know anyone who is a writer who has an agent? Or someone who knows someone?
Focus on one of those questions.
I wonder how I would find a good literary agent?
– What if I looked at novels I like and see if the author thanks their literary agent. I could look on my own bookshelf and I could go to the book store.
Can I do this tomorrow? Yes.
This brings some of your dream to your door. It’s a doable step that you can do right away.
If you ask, “What types of agents are there?”
– I can google agents and see what comes up. Can you do this tomorrow? Yes.
Now, along the way, you may find out something like literary agents for fiction writers don’t take book proposals … they want a written novel. In that case, you wouldn’t want to start contacting literary agents until you’d tackled the subgoal of writing that darn novel.
But there is so much power in going to that bookstore, finding books you love and seeing the real, live people that made that author’s dream a reality.
You are taking a real step toward your dream. And it can feel great!
Talk about a dream, try to make it real ...
If you take those three subgoals, and work backwards you will continue to reveal all the steps to your ultimate goal.
When you lay it out like this, it shows that writing a best-selling novel isn’t an over night thing. But, is it still your dream? Can you still imagine it, feel it, love it?
If you broke it down into doable steps, could you pursue those steps part-time while you still worked at your full-time job?
Can you picture yourself leaving work excited because you’re working on a scene in your novel? Or maybe you’ve reached that stage where you have a coffee date with another author and you’re going to compare notes about agents.
Your custom-made plan.
You can create your own custom-made plan, your path from your dream to today. You can begin right away. Usually, the beginning steps are research, so it starts out pretty easy.
You always know your next step. You can adjust as you go. Along the way, you’ll race through easy steps, get overwhelmed by big ones. You’ll realize you need to ask for help as well. But because you have a plan, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you need help with.
Decide.
Once you get an idea of what’s involved, it’s time to decide. Are you going to go after your dream or not? If yes, you can get started right away.
Don’t stay in maybe land. If you’re not sure, decide that it’s a “no for now”. Then put a date in your calendar and look at it then. Don’t waste energy flipping back and forth and never doing anything about your dream.
It's all doable.
You can stay in the yearning and in some day land. Or you can embark on a journey, the one you’ve secretly always wanted to be on. So, what’s next? What journey lights up your heart and sets you on fire? Where does your imagination take you? What’s your dream for yourself?
It’s all doable.
