What’s stopping you from achieving your goals – will or skill?
Many people would say skill e.g. “I really want to do that, but I don’t know how.”
This is no longer true. There are so many sources of information now (YouTube, Reddit, ChatGPT, blogs) that will tell you how to do anything you can imagine. If you decide something is important to you, you will figure out how to do it.
A personal example. I wanted to write a book. I found other books and online resources to guide me through the process. I ended up paying a small publishing house to help bring it into existence. I wrote, edited, and published the book in one year as a side effort from my coaching business while also parenting two toddlers.
What I did not have the will for, though, I discovered, was marketing the book. I read the blueprints from James Clear and Michael Bungay Stanier, and it’s clear what I need to do. While it wouldn’t catapult my book to millions of sales like them, I believe the book is good enough to sell a lot more copies, as the people that read it really benefit from it. And even though I know what is necessary and can see how it would benefit me and the book, I don’t follow the advice. It’s not how I want to spend that time. It’s a will issue, because the resources to develop the skills of sales and marketing are there.
Another example. For most of my life, I said I wanted to run a marathon, but I never actually did the training necessary even though there are plenty of resources that lay out the training plan. I didn’t figure it out because I didn’t want to. Fortunately, I got fit enough while biking one year that I managed to just go run a marathon so I could cross it off my list.
I’m learning to be more self-aware in this way – what are the things I really want to do (as evidenced by me taking the time to do them) vs the things I say I want to do (but don’t actually do)? It’s fine to want things but unless I have the will to bring them into existence, they are just daydreams.
What about you? What do you say you want but haven’t taken concrete steps towards making happen? If you really want it, what’s one step you could take today to start (look up a web page, find a mentor, enroll in a class)?
If you don’t take that step, reflect on what’s stopping you. You might find that you don’t want to do what’s necessary to achieve your outcome – you just want the result (like me with the marathon). That’s fine but be honest with yourself about it.