Build Momentum For Lift-Off By Staying Grounded in Process

If you ever fantasize about your ultimate form of success, consider for a moment what’s useful about those seemingly wild imaginings; what they tell you about who you really are. Whatever your specific dream of success is, does it give you a feeling of complete comfort and acceptance? Chances are it does, and that’s because you are aligning with your core values.

The utility of identifying your personal core values, such as freedom, a sense of purpose, peace of mind, acceptance, and respect, to name just a few, is that they can serve as a vision, or a compass of what you truly want to manifest for yourself.

But how do you make the necessary changes when your dream goals seem so out of reach? Three factors are needed. Loosely based on Beckhard’s Formula for Change, they are: motivation, unhooking yourself from self-limiting beliefs, and lastly, keeping your goals grounded in reality.

Motivation

When we are not living in alignment with our values, they lie dormant, stored as untapped energy within us. This can leave us feeling dissatisfied, stuck and frustrated. When this is no longer acceptable, it motivates us to finally make a change. Along with this desire to move away from “what is”, if we can also tap into those values and dreams of success, we can create a values-based vision that can become our compass and guide us forward. Striving for values alignment becomes our “why”.

“Unhooking” from what’s holding you back

We all have our own stories and beliefs about why certain aspirations are not acceptable. By becoming more aware of these default assumptions, we can break free of these constraints. Knowing what triggers us and why, helps us loosen our grip on our perceptions.

Keeping your goals grounded in reality

So great, you know your “why”, and you have more awareness about that thing that’s been holding you back. But how do you get from here to there?

If you’ve ever set out on a plan to go after your dream goal, you may have found that after a few weeks, you experience a dip in your momentum, feeling frustrated with your attempts to plan and stay the course. I am sheepishly raising my hand as having started and stopped new plans many times.

It’s important to remain genuinely excited about your dream goals, but also to know that it can only be done one step at a time. To balance this out, you need to visualize your process, not your dream goal. One framework that I have used is John Whitmore’s Pyramid of Goals, which was designed specifically to eliminate the frustration and disappointment of goal setting.

The key to focusing on process goals, which are at the lowest end, is that you define them based on the SMARRT acronym, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Relevant, Timely (date). As each of the types of goals ties in and supports the one above it, what you need to do becomes very clear; your mandate is to focus on process, and by doing so, make progress towards the apex of the pyramid that represents your most aspirational dream goals.

So stay grounded, and focus on your process goals; the ones in your control. By seeing your process goals through, you will build the momentum needed for those dream goals to have lift-off.