Last week I wrote about using the milestones approach for dynamic goals.
Most of the time and the hardest part about any goal is to get started.
It becomes especially harder to take the first step when you see a mountain in front of you.
Most people who have never climbed a mountain won’t understand that you don’t need the motivation for the entire summit upfront.
Once you start, the journey becomes it’s own motivation
Hence you only need enough motivation to reach the 1st milestone.
The best part about the 1st mile stone approach is…
When you’re first starting out with no prior experience planning the entire summit is difficult.
But… What if…
You just hire a coach and lay out the plans to reach the first base i.e. the 1st milestone.
That’s when you can forget about the million hypothetical ways that it could fail
and instead, you can actually just get started!
This is not the same as no planning or even just partial planning.
Here, you have a coach, who has at least the outline of the entire plan.
But he reveals only part of it because he knows that with no prior experience, you are edgy, and fretting about the ways it can fail.
And at such a time overwhelming you with all the other ways it can fail that you are not thinking about is not going to help you!
Coming back to the topic
There is something enchanting, encouraging, and insanely motivational about reaching the 1st milestone!
Reminds me of Eddie the Eagle who went on to qualify for the Olympics and enchant everyone.
How he had failed at 30 different Olympic sports and then…
Finally, he tried ski jumping.
He jumped the 30-meter hill in his first attempt
And the 45 after a few falls and a few bruises!
On his own with no prior training!
But the most remarkable part is how that gave him the motivation.
The feeling that yes, he can make it!
He went on to jump 71m at Calgary in the Winter Olympics which was then a British record!
To Recap
So if you are Britton planning to participate in a new Olympic sport, maybe thanking about the British record, and all the reasons why you will never beat it is not the best way to go about it.
Maybe all you need is to get to the first milestone.
Because most of the time that’s like the critical juncture after which things tend to figure themselves out!
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