Got a Goal? Get Focused!

Yogi Berra grins: If you don’t set goals, you can’t regret not reaching them. Novelist Rosalyn McMillan advises: When you want something in life, you have to focus.

Both good points. But what happens when something blocks our progress? Do we focus on the goal and ignore the obstacle? Or, do we focus on removing the obstacle, then, once removed, go back to focusing on the goal?

Welcome to what you can and should expect when you set a goal: obstacles and breakdowns.  Rather than wondering whether to focus on either the goal or the obstacle, I advocate a “both/and” approach:  See the obstacle as an integral, necessary part of the process of achieving your commitment.  Here’s what I mean:

When you create a commitment, you create a lens through which you interpret circumstances, people and events. Your commitment lens has something show up as an obstacle.  Commit to making your house 2-year-old proof for the visiting grandchild. The knickknacks you dusted yesterday now look like potential missiles to poke eyes out. The obstacle to what you want to achieve is an obstacle because of your commitment.  The more unpredictable and outrageous your commitment, the hairier the obstacles.  Think about the declaration to put a man on the moon and return him safely when there was no agreement in the scientific community about whether liquid or solid fuel was the right propellant.

No commitment, no obstacle. Obstacles are integral to your commitment.  Effectively dealing with the obstacle is the path to achieving your commitment

Validate what I am saying with your own experience.  Examine a relationship: a forever commitment made today knowing not what tomorrow brings. Or, examine something easier, like a DIY home improvement project.

We are redoing our well-worn, 22-year-old deck. Our commitment is to have a deck that looks cool, requires low maintenance, recycles existing boards and makes us happy. We planed old boards to reveal gorgeous, coral-red heartwood.  Commitment to recycle realized!  The boards soaked up the redwood stain. Commitment to cool look realized!  Unanticipated result: the dark stain shows all, and I do mean all, footprints, ours and the raccoons.  Obstacle to low maintenance identified. We love the color more than doing the work to re-stain. Our new commitment:  Happily wash the deck.

This commitment/obstacle relationship occurs whenever you are bringing forth something new, whether creating a new personal relationship, learning a new skill, or transforming your company’s culture from command-and-control to leadership at all levels. The more change your commitment calls for, the more obstacles you may have to deal with.

Interpreting obstacles as indicators of your commitment, rather than reasons to dismiss it, brings new meaning to the phrase “the journey is the destination” and new focus to being the commitment while you are going after it.