Going for “achievable” is the death knell for growth.
When we aim for what’s achievable we’re just doing more of what we already know we can do, using what we already know and the skills we already have. And this means we don’t grow. It means we play small and we stay small.
I see so many companies who every year set “realistic targets” based on “what’s achievable” – and inevitably they’re the ones who never invest in new skills or look for new opportunities, and guess what? They’re making no money!
Why not aim higher?
Aiming higher gets us to look for new answers and new opportunities.
Your subconscious mind is just brilliant at finding solutions to challenges, and if you raise the bar of expectation you’ll see all sorts of opportunities you’d never have seen if you’d kept your sights on good old Achievable.
So what stops us aiming higher?
I think the reasons we play safe are:
- We don’t want to be under pressure
- We don’t want to fail
- We’re afraid that we don’t know what to do or how to do it
- We don’t want to be disappointed in ourselves
I really do relate to this, and I find myself slipping back to what’s comfortable from time to time. Not saying I want to spend my life in perpetual state of discomfort – far from it, but I like to always have a challenge on the go.
A few months ago I decided to increase my monthly gross margin target by 35%. At the time I really didn’t know where it was going to come from or how I would do it.
But I do know that the only way to generate wealth is to add massive value to other people. So if I wanted to earn more, then I knew I needed to be giving even more value to more people. So my mind started working on how we were going to do that. And within 6 weeks we were hitting our new target.
Somehow ideas were just coming to me; I was picking the phone up more, and seeing different opportunities. So I’ve just increased it another 35% – again with no concrete idea in place, but my mind is buzzing on the different ways we can help our clients. I’m reading more and doing more courses to keep increasing my knowledge and skills so I can in turn be even more valuable to my clients.
You have to grow if you want more
One of my favourite expressions is “your business can only grow to the extent you grow” and the more I read, study, go to seminars and learn, the more I realise this to be oh so true. You have to keep growing to be able to achieve more. It’s ridiculous to expect your business to grow if you never learn anything new or stretch yourself. If you keep doing what you always have, you’ll get what you’ve always had…..
You CAN take it too far though
There is of course an extreme, and I’m not advocating you go there either.
Setting ridiculously high targets, which are often accompanied by big spending targets, is one way journey to losses and cash flow problems. And targets that are too high just demotivate everyone – and this stops creativity in its tracks whilst we find all the reasons to justify why we couldn’t do it.
And it’s ok not to hit your targets
Just because you set yourself a stretch target doesn’t mean you need to beat yourself, or your team, up if you don’t hit them. You’ll have achieved far more than by being realistic and going for achievable.