Are you already up to here with a social media feed filled with motivational quotes and New Year intentions? And are you tired of feeling pressured to swing for the fences? No wonder goal setting gets the side eye!
Conventional wisdom has been that the way to boss up was to set a bodacious goal, make a splashy announcement, and then hope for the best. But you don’t have to rely on hope, swagger, or enthusiasm to achieve big results. Instead, you can power sustainable success with qualities like vision, connection, and communication—all soft skills. In the January series, Three Ways to Shift Goals from Aspirational to Attainable, we’ll discuss how you can use these qualities to shift wishing and dreaming to succeeding and sustaining.
First, let’s start with vision. It’s essential to have a passionate idea about what you’d like to achieve. But here’s a secret no one may have mentioned: Picturing the outcome is only step one. It turns out living the dream takes tactics!
So, let’s meet someone who took an a-ha moment and then built a multi-million dollar business by blending soft skills with hard-won work experience.
Jim Koch never planned to start a brewery. His father discouraged him from pursuing what had been the family business for six generations, ensuring him it was a miserable way to make a living.
Jim followed his father’s advice, earning an MBA and JD. He joined Boston Consulting Group as a management consultant, brokering big deals for marquee clients. He not only had the knack—he excelled.
But life took a left turn when he stepped back and asked some hard questions. He remembers thinking: Do I want to do this the rest of my life? The answer came back: No. The next sort of corollary to that was: Well, if I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life, I probably don’t want to do it tomorrow.
That’s when Jim decided to strike out on his own. Koch built Sam Adams by combining soft skills he already had in his back pocket, such as collaborating with his network to identify investors, negotiating supply side and distribution deals, and having tenacity when roadblocks occurred. He had the prestige of running his own shop. But even more important was the chance to spend his days doing something he loved.
Did you catch how Jim Koch backed up his breakthrough insight with straightforward actions? In the same way, what expertise can you mix and match to become The Practical Visionary—the person who imagines a big objective and powers it with a laser focused How?
For instance, does your vision about a redesigned product need to start by compiling customer insights? Could you back up the solution to close deals faster by streamlining the deal intake system? And are you able to persuade others to collaborate and join in? Leverage those soft skills to power the picture in your mind.
Here are three ways for you to become The Practical Visionary:
I imagine success becomes I build my dreams on a firm foundation.
I tell everyone about my goals becomes Big announcements happen when the time is right.
Others are ahead of me becomes I set my own pace. I am shrewd, stable, and sure-footed.
It’s tempting to get swept away in January enthusiasm, but results don’t happen automagically. Rather than trying to force outrageous outcomes, support your vision by making it cogent, scalable, and driven by shrewd priorities.