How to climb a mountain
Many of us establish goals. Ambitious visions of the future. And these goals are often met with prerequisites. For that, in order to engage on the path of achieving our goal - we must first 'clear the plate' of existing responsibility. To ensure a full time commitment on our road to success.
Problem for me has been dealing with these prerequisites. Seems there is always something (typically involving money or contractual obligation) holding me back from launching ahead with the game-plan to achieve my lofty goals.
If you're like me - then you're already in the driver seat. You've got the route planned out. Keys in the ignition. But you just can't justify turning the damn key.
Unconscious roadblocks
We say things like, "Nahh, I can't go down that path right now. Too busy, not enough money, [insert excuse here]."
Sure - for some of us it may be impossible to drop everything in pursuit of a big idea.
But that doesn't mean you throw on the brakes; delaying execution until the perfect day. Obviously if you stop all progress it's only going to make reaching your goals that much more difficult when and if ever you finally are ready to make a full time commitment.
And from my experience, there will always be something new that comes up that you have to deal with - and if you're in this state of mind of 'taking care of prerequisites' all the time - there will always be something in your way.
So today's realization, the one I'm about to share below, can serve as an elegant solution.
More than 1 way
First thing, I want to let you know that I've tried three of the most obvious routes to 'engaging full time' on my desired road to success. They all failed.
Route A) dropping everything and giving it a full time commitment
It was only a few months in that I ran out of steam; momentum and money. It was here I learned about the importance of sustained capital in the early stages of a business endeavor. You fucking need it. And if you're going to stay afloat without any outside capital you better make for damn sure you have something explosive that can sell and sell often.
Route B) part time commitment
This worked... for a while. Anybody out there can give a part time commitment to a new business endeavor. But for me; I was engaged to the point where part time turned ful time (way to fast). I would start each day focused on it, and even if I relegated to other responsibilities later in the day - the vision for my new business would remain and it would consume all of my creative attention. It drove me nuts that I couldn't work on it full time. And although I had built up tremendous momentum - I had to deflate it all because everything else in my life was reaching boiling point.
Route C) taking care of prerequisites, then committing full time
This has been my latest strategy up until today. It's provided mediocre results. Great for getting shit done, not so great for making any progress towards your ultimate business vision.
So maybe I should just try working harder. Or smarter...
My new strategy seems to have incredible harmony. It's a combination of each of the three routes.
Get out of the car and climb your mountain
The solution I recommend is this: alter your life's path to align with the reality of achieving your goals. In other words, maintain sight of your true goals while doing the things you need to do on a day to day basis. And gravitate to 'things' that will branch towards the type of reality you have envisioned.
In my case, my primary source of income has traditionally been a service based business model consisting of web design and development jobs. Yet my ultimate business vision is that of a product / SaaS based business in software; with products on mobile and desktop.
Rather than abandoning the service based model completely (which didn't work the first time) a more effective route will be to fill my sales pipeline with not web design jobs, but software design jobs. Gaining relevant experience and connections along the way.
The new strategy says to keep what is working; and grow from there. Altering your current reality to align with your desired vision of the future. Not taking different routes altogether, but making small shifts into more relevant activities; that will ultimately serve to build momentum towards launching to your goal. And the full time commitment will never have to 'start' it will eventually be just become reality.
Climbing a mountain is impossible when you approach it dead on, straight up, on a single linear path. You have to zig zag, maneuver around obstacles, and find your own path up to the top.
