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Work hard to give yourself lots of options and opportunities
Friday, 4 January 2008
Always finish what you start, is an adage that many people try to follow. And it's a good one in a lot of ways. But it probably focusses too much on the importance of the entire process towards achieving a goal. Generally, it's the earlier part that's most important, in my view.
And that part is the creation of options and opportunities. If you become a master at developing those, you'll find the achievement of end goals much easier.
I see too many people getting tied up in the pursuit of one particular outcome. They field their entire resources into that, and can't imagine that life will be worth living if they don't achieve it.
They have to have that one job, that special person, or that particular amazing achievement. They get so focussed on it, that they ignore the plethora of other options around them.
Even worse, they get so nervous and obsessed with their one goal, that they often allow their emotions to ruin the achievement of it. If every race becomes all or nothing, don't be surprised if you usually end up with nothing.
When you have the skills to develop a number of options for yourself, you generally get better at achieving your desired outcome. The obvious reason for this is that the more attempts you have at your target, the more statistically likely you are to hit it. But even better, the more attempts you have, the better your skills at negotiating the obstacles in your way become.
If you're lonely and manage to get one date a year, your chances of staying lonely are higher. If for no other reason that you'll get nervous on the date because the stakes are so high, and ruin it.
If you do nothing but obsess about getting one particular job, you'll be wasting time you could be spending developing other career opportunities for yourself.
And if you invest all your money into one particular venture, your chances of losing the lot are much higher.
Every step of working towards a particular goal is important, and is worth putting effort towards. But the most important in many cases is knowing how to create the opportunities towards reaching that goal in the first place. Concentrate on this, and a world of interesting options will open up to you.
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