06-09-15Jed, foreman for a Northwest mechanical contractor, told session 7B of the Leadership Development Lab,

“Last summer almost a year ago, my family and I decided to raise meat chickens, broilers, this coming summer. Since the new side business wasn’t starting for a year, I felt like we had plenty of time to get everything ready. I figured I would get everything in place over the winter. That didn’t happen. In early April, at session 3 of the Leadership Development Lab, I received the Turbo 5X enthusiasm challenge and the red dot reminder that I placed on my cell phone screen.

“I immediately noticed that every time I opened my phone, this physical reminder was telling me to work on my project.

“Since I got the 5X challenge with my red dot four weeks ago, I have built the broiler pen and the waterer, located a feed source, and ordered the broiler chicks. We have also got some marketing in place to sell the broilers we don’t use ourselves.

“The lesson I learned from this experience is that having a physical reminder that I see every day in my normal routine helps me stay focused on my project or goal.

“The action I call you to take is to put a reminder of your goals in a place you will see every day to remind you of where your focus needs to be.

“The benefit you will gain is achieving your goals and completing your projects in a timely manner.”

We have often heard the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s a fun riddle. A more practical and meaningful question is “How do I hatch my ideas?” If ideas were eggs, we’d lay a lot of them. If hopes and dreams—“would-haves, could-haves, should-haves”—were eggs, it might take several cartons to carry all of ours. So the question is how do we get from the ideas phase, the dream phase, to the hatching stage?

Here are the steps to turning our ideas into reality:

  1. Verbalize your dream. Say it out loud.
  2. Write it down.
  3. Set a deadline.
  4. Develop a plan. What is needed? What might block you? What are the next steps you need to take?
  5. Tell someone else who cares about you, a support person who will check in on you and hold you accountable.
  6. Put up reminders to keep your goal from slipping to the back burner.
  7. Meet with your support person weekly to report on progress.
  8. If you fall behind, recommit and, if needed, develop new action plans.
  9. When you hit your goal, have a celebration.
  10. Set a new goal. Soon you will have a flock of achievements to crow about!