Success Spectrum: A Cheat Sheet for Goals!
Did you know that there’s such a thing as a “Success Spectrum”? Well, now you do. It will help you solidify what success can look like for you.
In previous posts we’ve discussed fleshing out your WHY and making it something that’s believable, achievable and capable of manifestation.
So what’s this about a Success Spectrum now?
Try to imagine an actual spectrum on which you can experience success in terms of your various WHY-related goals in various concentrations. For some of you, this may just be a novel exercise. For others, this will usher in a paradigm shift.
Who knows? Give it a try.
With respect to a S.M.A.A.R.T. goal, imagine it placed on a spectrum where three outcomes in terms of succeeding with that goal would occur:
(1) You have marginal success in terms of achieving the goal;
(2) You have a normal level of success with it; or
(3) You enjoy epic success achieving it.
Imagine what each of these three outcomes are like in terms of all five senses, wherever possible–i.e., what does success at each level look like, feel like, sound like, smell like (the sands of the ocean where your mansion is?) or even taste like (yummy food at a success banquet? celebratory drinks?). When you do this part of the exercise, you’re not only making the Success Spectrum more real to you, you’re fleshing out the experience of actually achieving your goals, which should give you more leverage to go out there and actually achieve them!
Not a bad thing, right?
The Success Spectrum is also useful because some people only imagine success of epic proportions or nothing at all. The problem with an “all or nothing” approach is that you may throw up your hands in disgust if you barely make it across the goal-related finished line, when you should be celebrating that you accomplished the goal at all.
Hello, never miss the forest for the trees!
A “normal” level of success is actually more realistic than some cray-cray state of ecsta-say that you might be able to experience if you somehow were to score a success-related motherlode when achieving a goal. Epic is nice and all, and for sure shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars…but getting a strike by bowling right up the middle isn’t bad either.
Don’t be such a perfectionist about success that you become a celebratory party-pooper. Comparison is the thief of joy. Stop comparing yourself to others and/or comparing your expectations to perfection, because that’s a standard no one can ever truly reach.
Finally, your subconscious mind will be less likely to tempt you into self-sabotaging behaviors if you place your goals on a spectrum where there’s a bar or two it thinks you can actually reach. Believable goals are achievable ones.
Optimize your overall chances of success; try Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck, available on Amazon.
