The holidays are thankfully behind us for another year, we've made our way around GO and we're facing the first stretch of our new year hopefully with new energy around the possibilities that lay ahead. I'm always surprised when the end of the year looms closer and it seems to automatically flip a switch in my head, and I find myself reflecting on what I've accomplished in the past year, and what I have yet to do.
This year I found myself fumbling about questioning the point of resolutions, goals and the like. I wondered, do the goals or the big hairy bad-ass (Sorry Jim Collins) visions really get us headed in the direction of our dreams, or are they fodder for fools, distractions for discontents, subterfuge for the silly and stupid?
There is some compelling research that suggests that if we want to achieve our goals, whatever they may be, we can't invest all our time writing down our nice fantasies, or meditating on positive outcomes. Writing down affirmations may make you feel good, but they're not likely to get you anywhere. Instead, you need to have a concrete plan, share the plan with others, make it time based, write down the individual steps, and reward yourself as you accomplish these mini-steps.
In one study, them women who were on a weight loss programs and who wrote down affirmations and visualized their "ideal weight" were much less successful in achieving their goal then women who took a more realistic view of the losing weight, had a specific plan and worked through it step by single step.
As a writer and performer, I've learned through trial and error, mostly error, that improvisation alone won't yield a great many results. Thinking off the top of the head is necessary, but wandering and making it up as I go won't really get me too far down the path. When things get tough, or I encounter a heckler, a problem, or a challenge, improvisation can make the difference between success and failure, but only if I have some sense of my core ideas, and where I'm headed.
We can embrace "Yes...and" thinking in brainstorming or ideation sessions, but in our quest to create new, beautiful forms with our ideas, we have to balance the improv with small, planned actions, single steps. In other words, use your imagination to create a story, think about where you want to go, then write down your script, map out your plan, and let the curtain rise!
In the past few years I've been writing about the coercive dependence upon scripts, processes and plans. I've been advocating for the imagination, for a greater sense of freedom and choice. But I've often overlooked the power of my own plan. The secret is to balance these things. A script alone won't make a great performance, and energy and imagination by themselves don't take us anywhere fast. We need to combine our brain, the creative and the strategic, in order to create what we most want.
As I get started in this year, with a plateful of projects and plans, I am using a simple model presented by Richard Wiseman (Quarkology).
In short...
What's your big goal? Have some fun...think about what you want to create, where you want to go.
Create a simple plan of small steps. What are your sub-goals? Why do you believe you can achieve these goals? What do you have to do to achieve this sub-goal? When? What is your reward if you get there?
Check out Richard Wisemans blog for more mojo on creating a great life. Good journeys my friends, may your challenges be well met.
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