Taking Control of Your Ambition

Having an ambition is a normal thing, it might be to make a career change or to lose weight, but how do you make an ambition a reality?

The first step towards making your ambition a reality is to make it real, give it substance something that you can focus on. Write it down in a broad outline because at this stage you don’t want to get bogged down in detail, for example it could be something as broad as, “get promoted” or “lose weight”.

The next step is to work out how and when you want to achieve the ambition and for the more complicated ambitions I would recommend using a “mind map” to explore the possible “how” options and I would also recommend setting goals to break down the “how” into achievable pieces.

Mind Map

A mind map is a compact way of consolidating information in a non formal way that encourages creative thinking and of course, creative solutions.

There are many ways of doing mind maps and a quick search on the Internet will throw up a good selection of methods.

I like to mix and match different methods, but if you look at the examples shown on the “Mindtools” website, http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm and on the “illumine training ltd” website,
http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/assets/Makeamindmap/MakeaMindMap.pdf you will get an idea of what style I use.

Choose a method that you are comfortable with, but whichever method you decide on it is well worth asking a few friends or colleagues to help, because they will certainly come up with ideas you don’t and you need to consider that every possibility, however diverse, is an opportunity.

Before starting on your mind map, make sure that you follow a few simple rules:-
1. No idea is too stupid or too wild not to be considered.
2. All ideas get put onto the map, especially the stupid and wild ones.
3. Have fun with the map, relax and treat it as a game.

As the map evolves and you get involved in the fun of creating the map, so your mind will begin to work in a less restrained way enabling you to be more creative and effective with your ideas.


Begin your Mind Map

Get a large sheet of paper and lots of coloured pencils. Note down your ambition in the centre of the sheet then draw a circle around it. Make sure this is a very brief statement no more than a few words.

Begin a brainstorming process where you and those with you throw out ideas about how you might get from now, to seeing your ambition as a reality. Show these ideas on the map branching from the circle at the centre of the page where each branch is labelled with the key idea, a little like chapters in a book or landmarks on a map.

As a particular idea spawns related ideas or thoughts, show these as side shoots off the original branch and label them too. The more ideas you can come up with the more branches and side shoots will be drawn.

If you get stuck with where to start, draw 3 initial branches and label them; Who, What and Where and begin thinking about, who will help you, what needs to be done and where do you need to be to start the process. This should help you get started.

Where branches or side shoots created by one idea are closely related to another, you can connect these, use colour if you like. If a word resonates with you, highlight it or draw a box around it to make it stand out. Same for branches, if something leaps out and grabs your attention, make it bold and visible.

When you have exhausted the brainstorming process, look at the map and you should see lots of radiating branches and side shoots representing all possible (and some impossible) ideas. You should see highlighted key words and branches of special focus, but most of all you should start to see possible solutions to achieving your ambition.

The next step is to use the ideas revealed by the mind map to create a series of steps or goals that will enable you to meet your target ambition.

Goals

No, not the football variety, but a name given to the steps leading from where you are now, to where you want to be.

Having completed your mind map and looked at how you are going to achieve your ambition you are ready to begin to make a note of the steps needed to go from where you are now, to realising your ambition.

Take the example I mentioned earlier, “Get promoted”. If it is simply a case of going to your boss the next day and saying, I want a promotion” and the boss saying “OK, and how much of a raise would you like”, then you probably don’t need a mind map and your goal would be, “go and see the boss tomorrow in his office and ask for a promotion”, but in most cases the step from now to finally achieving your ambition will need to be broken down into manageable chunks. There are 2 main reasons for this. One big step could be daunting, where with smaller steps you can achieve lots of small successes and see genuine progress towards your result.

Think of setting goals like climbing stairs, the more steps you try and miss out, the harder the climb and if you try and step too far, you could find yourself falling down.

SMART Goals

When you set your goals, they have to be SMART. This is a method of setting goals where you can see progress and where you can check that they are achievable. Smart means that you avoid vague goals like, “I will lose weight”, instead a smart goal would look like, “I will lose 10 pounds in 1 month by going to the gym 3 times a week”. How does this break down:-

SMART stands for:
S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Achievable
R = Realistic
T = Timely

You will need to write the goals down and keep them visible.

Specific

Your goals should be straightforward and should highlight what you want to happen. Therefore goals need to be specific because specific goals will clearly define what you are doing and it will give you focus.

Specific is the, Who, What and Where of the goal.
Who is involved in making it happen. Perhaps you need to involve other people to achieve the goal, note down who they are.
What needs to be done to achieve it. Use action words to describe what needs to be achieved, e.g. organise, coordinate, plan, develop etc.
Where do you hope to achieve the goal. Perhaps you need to be at a certain place to make the goal happen, make sure it is available when you need it.

Measurable

To see how you are progressing, your goal needs to be measurable, that is to say it has to have a value that marks the completion of the goal. This measure might be quantity, quality or time. For example to achieve this goal, you might need to meet with someone on a specific date, therefore your measure would be the date.


Achievable

It is of little value to you if you set goals that are impossible to achieve or unlikely to be achieved in the timescale you set.

If when you set a goal you have in your mind, “I’m never going to achieve that”, then you probably won’t and you are quite likely to fail, therefore you need to make sure that you can achieve the goal with the resources you have, in the timescale you set.

Realistic

This doesn’t mean easy it means attainable. Your goals must be attainable, but to maintain momentum they must have a degree of challenge in them. You might feel uncomfortable with the goal you set but ask yourself, “can it be done?” and if the answer is yes then it’s realistic.

If the goals you set are too easy then you are not giving yourself enough of a challenge to move forward, this is probably just as bad as setting goals that are too hard. So be realistic and give yourself stretched targets that you can achieve and want to achieve because they will keep you motivated, committed and focused.

If a goal seems to be unrealistic, consider breaking it into smaller goals, this often changes the perspective and makes the end result realistic.

Timely

Set a timeframe for your goal but keep in mind the other attributes, “Achievable” and “Realistic”, make sure your timescale meets with them. Also consider the attribute, “Specific” and set definite times for your goal, avoid scales like, “in the near future”.

SMART means that you know what you are going to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and when you are going to achieve it.
SMART goals are measurable and trackable so you can see if you are on target and if not, you can see clearly why and what you need to do.

When

At the beginning I said that we can “work out how and when you want to achieve the ambition”. The “how” has been achieved using a combination of mind map and SMART goal setting, so what about when?

Use the SMART goals to create a timeline showing when each goal should start and when it should be completed, the result should give you the When.

Confidence

The final step in making your ambitions a reality is to have confidence in your own ability to achieve them, because having confidence in yourself will give you the strength and determination you need to succeed.

If you are feeling a little light in the confidence department at the moment then contact us and find out how we can help.