This week we’re taking a closer look at getting outside our comfort zone so that we can start taking steps toward our goals and desires. If you haven’t read or listened to the previous two parts of this series, please stop and do that first.

The ultimate purpose of this mini-series is to help you take bigger and better action so that you can start moving toward your goals and dreams. This mini-series isn’t just about listening to me talk. It requires action on your part in order to be an effective learning tool. Each day includes an exercise and discussion that builds upon the last, so it’s important to start from the beginning of this series.

For everyone else, let’s get started with a brief recap.

Recap of Yesterday – Defining Your What and Why

Yesterday we discussed ways to find your driving force. This driving force is a representation of you, your beliefs, your morals, your values, and everything else that defines you at the core of your being.

To help us define what this is, we looked at the WHAT and WHY of your goals. A goal by itself is just a goal and likely to lead to nothing more than a dead-end. But a goal with a purpose, passion and emotion behind it is much more effective and attainable. This becomes part of your driving force.

As part of the exercise from yesterday, you were to create a list of goals for your “What you want” column of your spreadsheet or piece of paper. Each goal or desire listed in the “What” column then needed to have a corresponding “Why you want it” explanation.

Due to only having one night to work on this task, you may not have had time to come up with more than 10-15 goals and that’s okay. As you have time, add to this list. Make 100 or 101 “whats” and “whys” be your ultimate ideal total.

I guarantee that your true passion and desires and will come through if you create a list of 100+ goals.

Creating Objectives

Now that you have your list (or at least a list in progress) you should have a better understanding of what motivates you as a person. The next step in this process is selecting things from that list for which we will start brainstorming potential actions. These actions should challenge you and ultimately bring you closer to achieving your goal.

Through exercises much like the ones I’m walking you through, I discovered for myself some key things that created my driving force. First, I desire to help others succeed. This has been pretty clear for me whether I’m helping business or individuals. But there is also my desire to be authentic and to live a life doing things that I enjoy and that I’m passionate about doing. I want to be surrounded by activities and thoughts that give me and others hope.

I want to focus on things that build on my understanding about the universe and the capabilities which I believe all of humanity has the ability to access. I believe life is better when we have hope and understand that we really do hold the keys to our life and our journey. I desire to share that passion with as many people as possible because I believe that others can benefit from these ideas, thoughts, and experiences as well.

I chose entrepreneurship as my vehicle for experiencing these aspects. I saw entrepreneurship as an opportunity to think outside the box, to make my own rules, and to beat the odds. Most corporate employees will not break the mold and leave their job due to fear of loss or failure. And that’s not without warrant. Most businesses fail in the first 5 years.

Entrepreneurship is not an easy road to take, and nearly impossible without the support or the tools and knowledge necessary to help you succeed.

But bad odds or good odds, but my driving force was always there, moving me forward. Even when I tried to go back to the corporate world a few times, I always ended up working for myself again. I know it’s where I’m meant to be and I know it’s where I need to be to reach my full potential and live a life full of prosperity.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Think about an Olympic athlete and the level of dedication they display towards their goals. They are driven by the desire to compete, the potential of one day being an Olympic champion. There is no way they could withstand the years of physical exertion if they were doing it just for fame or money. They are doing it for a much more profound reason. Their chosen sport sparks a passion within them that keeps driving them forward.

So what is your reason? What is your driving force?

I hope you’ve begun to see a pattern that aligns with your driving force from the list you’ve started creating.

Your goal could be to improve the community you live in. You might want to create a youth organization that brings kids off the street and into your program that advances their life skills and gives them a better shot at living a life of greatness.

What potential actions can you think of that could help you to achieve such a goal? You’ll need to consider financial obligations so perhaps a visit to lenders is needed. Maybe you’d need to speak with a realtor to find space or to the city. Don’t get stuck on the HOW of everything. If you don’t know how to do something, make it an action of yours to find someone who does.

This is a tip I got from Russel Brunson (ClickFunnels) and I love it. Focus on the WHO, not the HOW. If you don’t know how to do something, just find someone who does. Otherwise you loose all momentum and may never reach the next step.

People with big, challenging objectives for their life will face a mountain of uncomfortable work before they even come close to achieving what they want. If you do not have a long list of comfort-zone-busting action ideas, then you won’t be doing enough to attack and achieve your goal.

If you cannot find daily opportunities to go outside of your comfort zone, you are simply not trying hard enough.

Maybe that sounds harsh but learning and growth are uncomfortable. Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable while you take steps toward significant and life-altering change. I promise you it will be worth it and I know you can do it!

So with that said, let’s get on with our next action-taking exercise on Kissing our Comfort Zone Goodbye!

Exercise 2 – Massive Action Brain-Dump

STEP 1:

With your lists of “WHATs” and “WHYs” handy, select a major one of your “WHATs” to use as your first Objective. This is the time when you would want to select a goal based on priority. Select something you’d really like to work toward achieving. With an objective selected, we’ll begin coming up with potential actions.

For this exercise you might want to use a mind map or you can just write down your objective (on a piece of paper or using a spreadsheet) and list out potential actions needed to achieve that objective.

Let’s pretend for a moment that I have the following objective and potential actions:

OBJECTIVE:

Create a live training event for 200 specialists in my industry (first attempt something like this before).

POTENTIAL ACTIONS:

  • Go to networking events and get to know people in the industry
  • Cold call potential attendees personally
  • Hire a sales rep or sales firm to call prospects
  • Place ads in the paper
  • Do a video blog promoting the event
  • Create strategic partnerships to help sell tickets
  • Do a publicity stunt that brings awareness to your event
  • Publicly call out a competitor and sell this event as an alternative
  • etc…

The list can be as long as you want it. No idea is a bad idea. Just brain dump anything that comes to mind.

After you’ve done this for 1-3 objectives, let’s move on to Step 2.

STEP 2:

Now, for each potential action that you’ve listed, we’re going to rank it in two ways.

The first rank is its Reward Quotient (RQ). This means, if completed, how much impact might this action have on helping you to achieve your goal.

Using a scale of 1-3 where 1 is a major potential impact on your objective. In some cases the action you list might take you right to achieving your goal. A rank of 3, on the other hand then would have very little impact.

1 = Major Impact      2 = Moderate Impact      3 = Low Impact

Next rank each action with a Fear Quotient (FQ). For this we will also use a scale of 1-3 where 1 is something that makes you very uncomfortable, nervous or even scared. A rank of 3 then, would be easy to do and doesn’t make you very nervous to complete or to try doing.

1 = Very Uncomfortable      2 = Moderately Uncomfortable      3 = Not Very Uncomfortable (Fairly easy to do)

Here is our example again with the RQ and FQ rankings.

OBJECTIVE:

Create a live training event for 200 specialists in my industry (first attempt something like this before).

Potential Actions with RQ and FQ

Repeat this exercise until you’ve completed this for your selected, priority goals/objectives. 

I know I’ve thrown a lot of work at you but do your best to get through at least 1-3 objectives. If you have time for more, go ahead and keep going.

Share Your Progress!

If you would like to share your objectives and action lists, please feel free to leave me a message using the contact form or by leaving your thoughts in the comments below this article.

Please Share This Series!

If you are finding benefit from participating in this mini-series, please share it with your friends and co-workers so that more people can learn how to Kiss Their Comfort Zone Goodbye and start taking action toward their own goals.

Growth and progress are uncomfortable, but the benefits are well worth it! The more you put into this, the more you’ll get out of it, so get working on those objectives!

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you will join me again tomorrow as we take a deeper look at how to start taking action.