The Fourth Of 5 Goal Setting Mistakes Guaranteed To Bore And Sabotage You

“I was 25 years old. I had just got out of college and I was absolutely certain I was going to change the world but I had no idea how” – President Obama, First Post Presidential Address at the University of Chicago

Thinking you need to “know how” before you start can be a big mistake. It’s true, you do need to know what you want and why you want it but you don’t need to know how before you start working on your goal. You just have to start.

Get into action before you know how, because it’s the doing of the thing that informs you along the way. It’s the doing of the thing that gives you the power.

This has been borne out time after time by people who have done great things, often shaping history as they took action. For example, it is often quoted about Thomas Edison, that he “failed 1000 times” before he invented the light bulb. Edison may have known that he wanted to end up with a light bulb but he had no idea how to actually do it when he started. That’s why it took over 1000 experiments, or failures — however you want to look at it — to get to the end result.

When I began in the pharmaceutical industry, my first job was as a sales representative calling on family physicians to promote drugs for diabetes. I was given the highest level of sales training from experts in the field, but I still had to overcome the looming obstacle of that first call on that first doctor. It seemed like a wall that I could not get my mind to move through.

I had a big goal. Not only did I have a huge monetary forecast to deliver for my first year, I had my own personal goal of getting into the President’s Circle, which was the highest honor for a sales representative in my company. How would I do this? I didn’t know how to start. I was scared.

How would I break the ice? What would I say? What if I got an objection? What if I was asked a question that I did not know the answer to? Fear of rejection and failure loomed large in front of me until I had a conversation with one of my fellow sales representatives, who had already been on the job for a few years.

John told me the story of his first physician call. He said, “I sat in the waiting room for two hours, while one patient after another went in and out of the office. When it finally came to my turn, I walked into the office and approached his desk, where he sat with his head down, reviewing a patient’s file. I stood there for, it seemed like twenty minutes — it was really only about a minute — but time seemed to stretch out in front of me. When he finally looked up, I walked up to his desk and handed him my business card.”

“What did you say?” I asked. I wanted to know the exact words he said to break the ice.

“I think I said, ‘Hello Doctor, thank you for seeing me today.’”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He didn’t say anything. He took my card. Ripped it in two. Ripped it in two again. He shredded it. Then he threw it into the trash can beside his desk.”

My eyes widened and my mouth opened as I said, “What!? What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said John. “I just stood there.”

I waited because I knew there was more to come.

“I stood there for a few seconds,” said John. “Then I started to laugh. And I just kept laughing. I couldn’t stop. Then the doctor started to laugh. We started laughing in unison.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“He sat down. Motioned for me to sit down in the chair in front of his desk and nodded for me to start talking.”

“Do you still call on this physician?” I asked.

“Yes,” said John. “He’s become one of my best customers. I have access to see him whenever I want. He helped me a lot in my first year in the business.”

We went on to speak much more about John’s experience and what it taught him. He said that he learned his biggest lesson in that meeting.

He said, “No matter how much you prepare, you are never going to know how until you take action and just go into that first office. You just never know how things will go during your interactions with another human being.”

“The second lesson,” he said, “never take yourself too seriously. Be ready to laugh when things blow up in your face. They will.”

All the sales training in the world, would never have taught me what John taught me in just a few minutes of casual conversation. That one conversation was the biggest influence to help me accomplish my goals that year, and for many years following.

The overall lesson I took away is this. Want to reach your goals? Want to change the world? You will never know how until you start. So just start.