Find Time to Give Your Dreams Some Landing Gear!

The Time Finder with Paula Eder

The way you use your time is the way you live your life.

Posted on February 11, 2010, under Ask Paula.

Finding time for dialogue with members of the Finding Time community is one of my favorite things! We invite readers’ questions and comments – and I love highlighting them here, most Thursday’s. Read on – and please feel invited to join in!

Not too long ago I had a Tweet from CozyCoach (aka Jennifer Scovil). Jen is a new Mom who’s also in the process of developing a website and a coaching practice. Her question?

@PaulaEder I wish you would write more about The Overambitious Goal. That’s me and I never go in with an understanding of how I’ll reach it.

This is a great question, because while we don’t want to shackle our dreams, it’s important to learn to fashion goals, objectives, and action steps that can make our dreams into realities. Anything less, and we’re actually sabotaging our dreams (in addition to frustrating ourselves). As CD Jackson has said:

Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings.

So, what does that mean in practice? It means, in a nutshell, “chunking” your dreams down into goals, objectives, and actions steps ’til you get to doable pieces.

Of course, setting goals isn’t magical. And setting goals is not a requirement for being an effective and successful person. If your goals are “shoulds” you may find yourself rebelling against them. But, if your goals are steps toward your dreams, they are more likely to be aligned with your values and your energy … and you are much more likely to follow through on them!

Here are 3 tips to help you as you think about goal-setting:

Setting goals is based in what you want in your life. Try writing your goals in clear, concrete, and simple language. This helps you see exactly what you want, and creates an image of the outcomes in your mind.
Once you have defined the outcomes you want, it’s much easier to design relevant action steps. This is key! Be as concrete and incremental as you can, as this puts the feeling of accomplishment within reach as you complete each step!
Setting goals introduces two states of mind that can improve your life. They are “awareness” and “agility“. Awareness is what keeps our eyes on the prize. Agility, on the other hand, allows us to adjust to the unexpected things that arise along the way.

As a recipe for realizing dreams, remember these three concepts – chunking down, awareness, and agility. Hope that helps!

And before closing, I note that today is the anniversary of the untimely passing of Thomas J. Leonard, founder of Coachville and inspiration to thousands and thousands of coaches around the world. His spirit lives on in the work of Andrea J. Lee, and others … and here is a quote of his that captures, to my mind, some of his wonderful energy, humor, and wisdom!

Deliver what people expect and more; but don’t just give them eleven apples instead of ten, toss in a kiwi.

What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for The Finding Time Success Kit. It’s FREE, and it provides you with key tools for your time success! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!

Let’s explore time together …

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There are 2 Responses to “Find Time to Give Your Dreams Some Landing Gear!”

#1 Dan - 11 February, 1:22 PM

If you’d like a tool for setting your goals, you can use this web application:

http://www.Gtdagenda.com

You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A Vision Wall (inspiring images attached to yor goals) is available too.
Works also on mobile.

#2 Paula - 12 February, 6:06 AM

Thanks, Dan – looks interesting. Do you use it?

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