Want to Tell a Better Story?
I write a lot about goals.
I also write a lot about the process.
I believe setting a BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL—and then continuing to do that over and over after you see the first one through—is one of the most important things you can do in life.
Doing so can help you tell the story you want to be telling—the one you know you can be telling.
But, here’s the irony of it all: it’s usually not even about the goal achievement that leads to the story—your story comes from fully engaging in the process.
In a sense, goal achievement is simple.
It’s about engaging in activities, behaviors, and habits day after day, week after week, month after month, and, sometimes, year after year.
And, this is what makes goal achievement so hard.
It’s mundane.
It’s boring.
It takes time.
And, unfortunately, it’s not glamorous.
We shoot ourselves in the foot when we set a BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOALand then expect the excitement and motivation we experience at the beginning to carry through the entire process.
Excitement and motivation are emotions—they’re fleeting.
Daily activities, behaviors, and habits are actions—and they’re lasting.
The process isn’t glamorous. But, committing to and embracing the process is the only thing that will help you achieve your goal and lead to that story you’ve always wanted to tell.
This past week, my wife and I watched The Alpinist on Netflix. It’s a fantastic documentary about Marc-André Leclerc, a Canadian rock climber and alpinist. Without giving too much away, the film builds up to Marc-André chasing after a BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL. The filmmakers have Marc-André reflect on this goal and I chuckled as I listened to what he had to say:
“It’s kinda funny. The actual achievement doesn’t really change your life like you think it might when you’re building up to it, but what you’re left with is the journey that got you to that point, and if you have this big journey where you had to figure a lot of stuff out, you had to plan, and it was more immersive, and then you were somewhere really beautiful for a long time, and then had to work really hard, and overcome some kinda mental barrier, you’re left with so much more of a story or like a memory and an experience. And that’s what I find is the most important.”
So, what’s this mean?
It means, set a BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL. Something that is really hard. Something that takes a long time. Something that requires you—out of fear—to engage in intense preparation because you know that if you don’t, you don’t stand a chance of achieving your goal.
It means go after something in your life that seems so straight forward and clear when you set it, but then forces you to commit to and embrace the process because things are going to get confusing and ambiguous and messy after you start going after your goal.
Because, as Marc-André alludes to, this is the stuff that leads to a BIG journey.
These are the things that you’re forced to figure out and plan around and immerse yourself in.
These are the things that force you to challenge yourself, that push you to overcome mental barriers, and that help you realize you can do more than you thought you could.
Within the BIG, SCARY, HAIRY journey is where you start to develop new activities, behaviors, and habits in your life that slowly—and consistently—change who you are.
And you’re left with this amazing story of all the things you did to achieve the goal.
The lessons you learned.
The things you’re proud of.
The new ways you live your life.
The goal is the goal and, in some ways, you always knew this because it was part of the story you believed you could be telling.
The process is what you can’t imagine.
And, in seeing a BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL through to the end, the process is going to be unlike anything you ever imagined—it has to be because it’s part of your story that you’ve never told before.
You owe it to yourself to tell that story you’ve always known you could be telling. Simply embrace the process—the journey—and you’ll have wonderful chapters to add to your story.
