People put their goals on hold for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they delay because they’re waiting for the perfect moment. Sometimes they shut down because a door slammed in their face. Sometimes they stall because they’re afraid to fail. Whether you’ve put your goals on the back burner due to a false start, the fear of failure, or a failure of the imagination, chances are you’ll regret if it you don’t try to achieve them. And when it comes to achieving goals, there’s no time like the present.
Overcoming the Perfection Problem
If you have unfulfilled career ambitions, it’s important to have an honest conversation with yourself about what’s standing in your way. There could be many reasons why you’re not where you hope to be but if one is that you’re waiting until the temperature’s perfect before you put your toe in the water, you’re going to wait a long time. Some women put their career goals on hold to raise a family or they hesitate to seek promotions for which they’re qualified because they fear they won’t be able to manage on both fronts. They view advancing in their careers and raising a family as an either/or proposition. But the two aren’t mutually exclusive. If you wait for the stars to align before you get going, you’re engaging in a form of self-sabotage because you’re limiting yourself. Great things rarely happen in life if you stay in your comfort zone. The only way to find out what you’re capable of is to throw yourself into the fray. The fray is messy, I’ll give you that, but leaping into it is the only way I’ve ever found to get where I wanted to go.
Embrace the 20-Minute Rule
Since the perfect moment is never going to come, you have to take advantage of the moments you do have. I’m a fan of the 20-Minute Rule. We can all find twenty minutes during our day to take a proactive baby step towards achieving a goal. The next time you tell yourself that you can’t possibly find the time to fit pursuing fill-in-the-blank goal into your schedule, I want you to think about Jake Tapper. As CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, Tapper hosts a show six days a week and has to prepare for presidential debates and town hall forums. He is also a husband and the father of two kids. He recently published his first novel. When an interviewer asked him how on earth he’d managed to fit writing a novel into his schedule, he replied that he carried his laptop with him at all times and subscribed to the view that if he had 15 minutes here or an hour there or time on a plane or train, he grabbed it. The time added up, he said. Having written a book myself and fit in the time to work on it between running a company, parenting four kids, and enjoying a personal life, I can vouch for the fact that I’d never have achieved that goal if I’d waited for the perfect moment.
Defeat the Enemy Within
Even if you have a story that others are interested in hearing and the ability to tell it well, you can’t achieve a goal like writing a book unless you believe you’re capable of achieving it. The same holds true for any major goal you hope to accomplish. Unless you possess the mindset that you have what it takes to achieve your goal and — this is important — that you’re entitled to achieve it (since women often feel that they’re not, even though they’re more than qualified), you will have difficulty getting going. Again, as is so often the case with achieving goals, you have to conquer the enemy within before you can turn your mind to overcoming the external obstacles. But in my experience, once you tell yourself you can do this thing you really want to do, and give yourself permission to move forward, it will happen.