A Personal Blog
Reach Beyond the Possible
I was on a training run with a mentor of mine a while back. We were enjoying an outdoor run through Ojai. As the trail melted into a single-track, we took turns, one person leading, the other following. Our topic of discussion was coaching and leading. At one point, I said something like, “I don’t know if I can really be a successful writer, I might not have enough experience.”
Jackson stopped so suddenly, I almost ran into him. He looked at me straight in my eyes and said, “How can you ever out-perform what you’ve decided is possible?” Then, he turned and continued running.
I thought about that and other things for the next 20 minutes. “How can I out-perform…” “decided…” “possible…”
At the end of the run, I grabbed my journal and laid out the beginning of my focussed plans. I started on a path that has continued to this day. I still write daily, and I am still published (articles, web-zines, letters to the editor, newsletters) monthly. I’ve realized in the past 20 months that when I limit myself to what I think is possible, I place a target well below what is possible. When was the last time you out-performed your own ideas?
Damn freaking straight boy. Now I just need to learn this.
About the author
| Print article | This entry was posted by Jeremy Wright on September 21, 2004 at 7:04 pm, and is filed under Business, From My Life, General. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
Comments are closed.
about 7 years ago
Have you ever set yourself an easy goal – and found that once you get started, you feel like doing more than you’d planned. The lesson from this might be: plan what’s possible and you’ll do what isn’t. Didn’t Newtwon say that for every maxim there is an opposite and equally true maxim?
about 7 years ago
Because my personality is such that I:
1. Love a challenge
2. Always have more than enough to do
3. Am alwyas thinking up new ideas
I’m most likely to set goals which are worth my attention, that I’ll feel satisfied in fulfilling and are possible all at the same time.
So, typically, I don’t set myself “easy” goals unless time doesn’t allow for anything else… And I rarely do more than my goals because I’ve tended to set them based on my time.
That doesn’t mean my goals aren’t big. Like I’m in a 3-month body training competition right now. It’s incredibly hard. I set goals based on what I thought I could achieve. If I get close to my goal, I’ll simply reset it to something higher…
I’m sure I’m not alone in that. But rarely do I feel like I’m “exceeding” my goals, because I’m always resetting them when I get close…
Maybe that’s not healthy though ;-)
about 7 years ago
I’ve always been impressed by your focus (and congratulations on the ensight.org sale, BTW). I’m less impressed with the likes of this, though, in terms of correct attribution to the author ;-)
My thought is, motivation, focus and spinning off new ideas gets you a long way. But you should make sure it doesn’t sully your reputation (by you, I mean “we” collectively). Reputation counts for a lot with regard to content, and even more so in cyberspace where there’s often not a lot else to go on.
Funnily enough, that sounds very moralistic. I don’t think it is really – it’s just pragmatic.