By Sunny Simon
Recently a friend complimented me on the name of my business, “Raise the Bar High,” and asked how I selected it. Good question. I explained I am a country western fan. One day I heard a song by Sugarland with the lyric “tired of shooting too low, so raise the bar high” and I thought that’s it! (The song, written by Jennifer Nettles, Kristian Bush and Tim Owens reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.) It was the perfect name because I enjoy coaching people with lofty goals who are ready to do the work.
Think about it. What do you get when you set a goal that can be accomplished with minimal effort? No doubt the answer is, you receive minimal return. So don’t cheat yourself by low level goals. Set a huge goal and you may surprise yourself by finding you have more potential than you thought.
Super-sized goals require both supreme focus and a commitment to stay in the game. In my mind, the secret sauce to having that stick-to-it mentality involves celebrating. After all, who doesn’t love a celebration? It helps us truly enjoy the journey.
Try this exercise. Go to the drawing board. Sketch out your largest goal and break it down into steps. Next decide where the milestones fall. For example, we can all relate to weight loss goals. Let’s go with 50 pounds as a number. Setting our milestones in 10 pound increments makes sense. We can stop for a beat and savor the victory with a small reward. (Of course, celebrating with a non-food item is recommended). Recognizing how far we’ve come is highly motivational. Hitting and acknowledging that milestone drives us on toward finish line.
Here’s another hint to attaining large goals. Practice the power of patience. Acknowledge that nothing happens overnight. A child who wants to win a spelling bee drills, right? If you want to run a marathon, you need to train, correct? Build that mentality into your daily thought process. Tell yourself your mountain is not too big to climb, it just requires patience and a steady effort.
So dream big, visualize yourself raising the bar high and clearing it. You may not jump high enough on the first run, but don’t let that deter you. Get right back up and try again. You will get there!
Ready to tackle the week and work on your BIGGEST goals? Excellent. Stop reading and start NOW! Sunny Simon is the owner of Raise the Bar High Life and Career Coaching. More about Sunny at www.raisethebarhigh.com
