Enmettlement

You want to do extraordinary things. We all do, I think this is quite universal. We’d all like to achieve something (or many things) that seem to be out of reach for most people.

We want to be in that small minority that climbs an 8,000 metre mountain, wins a marathon, builds a wildly successful business or becomes a famous actor.

What makes these things extraordinary? Extraordinary things are extraordinary, simply because so few people achieve them.

Then why is it that so few actually manage to achieve them? What, exactly, is stopping us?

Conventional wisdom tells us that we need a plan to achieve our goals. We need structure. We need tips and tricks. I am a little obsessed with reading self-help and psychology books. If you’ve read even a fraction of the books that I have on achieving goals, then you’ll be familiar with some of the common advice:

1. Write it down
2. Break it into smaller tasks
3. Set deadlines
4. Make yourself accountable
5. And so on…

This is all great advice, and is probably very useful. But what I often find missing in the common advice, is this:

To achieve the extraordinary, you have to be willing to …