understanding what's required

You know that feeling a few weeks into pursuing a new goal or objective. The certainty you had at the start has started to fade. Sound familiar?

It's struck me over the last few weeks when talking and working with a number of individuals how important it is to break down the component parts of any future success. Some up front thinking here can really help shape and focus any plans that you construct.

The more I’ve thought about this the stronger the case develops that this type of approach can apply to the short, medium and longer term goals that you want to achieve.

There’s a chance you might get blindsided to something that is really important simply because you’re too close to what you want to achieve. High motivation fuelled by emotion and excitement can override you're more rational thinking. To offset this potential and get more input, try testing out your thinking with others to help make sure you’ve got the bases covered.

When you’ve got everything listed out you can start thinking how you could become excellent at achieving what’s required to meet the demands of the event or activity. Challenge yourself to get beyond the basics here. Take your thinking and action to a new level.

Here’s an example to bring this thinking to life. You want to improve your overall health. Quite quickly you could develop the key demands of such an objective – fitness, weight management, stress management etc. I’ll pick one item to illustrate the point – weight management. For some the demands of weight management relate to food intake and current weight. Anyone thinking along these lines is right. There is however an opportunity to go a little deeper. How about your knowledge of nutrition, store cupboard management, the ability to put together tasty menus and cook them? If any of these areas are not as you’d like them once you’ve done the thinking you’ve got concrete items for inclusion in your development plan.

Don't underestimate the less glamorous and in many cases smaller activities for the impact they can have on your objective. An under powered store cupboard has brought many a weight management plan to its knees.

So focusing on the demands of a particular objective can really help unlock what’s required to increase the chances and quality of your success. As with any type of approach just thinking is not enough. You will need to translate the thinking into positive action.

I'd love to know what approaches you use to understand more about how to achieve what you want?