What Are Your Resources?
Resources
We’re going to deal with the fifth spoke in the wheel of goal setting (or Well-Formed Outcomes). That spoke is “resources.” These resources can be internal or external. They can be mental, physical, or material. What skills or states of mind are needed to achieve your outcome? When I began my girls’ school in India, planned for an expedition in the Arctic Circle, and decided to start my current coaching and training business I needed to do an inventory of my assets and figure out what I needed to do to acquire the missing pieces. Some of these missing pieces had to do with money, some with physical fitness, some with contacts, and some with background knowledge. I needed both internal and external parts to complete the different pictures.
Acting As If
In each of these situations, the inventory showed I was lacking in certain areas. I’ve never been one to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so I had to act “as if” I already had these missing resources or would be able to get them in a reasonable time frame. The ability to visualize was important in imagining that a particular “mini-outcome” had already been achieved. Positive past experiences were helpful in accessing the necessary internal resources.
If you have trouble acting “as if” you may have some limiting beliefs that need to be addressed. The skills that I talked about in an earlier post, will definitely come in handy here.
Mind and Body
We have to make sure that our mental and physical resources are aligned. The mind-body separation that exists in much of American society causes us to under- or over-estimate our ability to get something done. Our physiology can determine our emotions and vice versa. We have the ability to change our physiology and to choose our emotions. I will talk about how to do this in future posts.
If you don’t have the requisite time, knowledge, skills, health, or state of mind to achieve the ultimate outcome, then you might have to start off with some smaller goals to fill these gaps.
OPM
Sometimes we also need “Other People’s Money,” equipment, information, contacts, or emotional support. This is where the ability to develop and maintain a network pays dividends. Honestly evaluating our available and needed resources will be the difference between “magical thinking” and a clear-eyed path to progress on our outcomes.
How have you dealt with a lack of resources?
