What's your sport, hobby or special interest? You should create analogies from it.
Golf is a game of yards--or is it? You hit buckets of balls, working to send each one as far out as possible. Then one just falls short of that 300 yard marker, or suddenly it veers off to the right. You groan. All the yards, and yet you failed to meet your goal by just inches. Sometimes business problems are like that. You see the huge goal, you work towards it with everything you've got, and then you fall just short.
Does missing your goal by a small amount mean the effort was wasted? Not at all. If you hadn't hit the golf ball for the distance, you wouldn't even know how hard you could hit and how close you could come. Each time the ball falls short, or veers off a bit, you learn something about your body, your movements and your effort.
The same education occurs when you set a business goal and don't quite make it. Add up everything you did learn and then figure out what else you need to do. A hole-in-one doesn't come on the first, or even the 100th, try. It comes (maybe) after thousands of balls hit. Even Tiger Woods misses and then learns from his mistakes.
Your business goals come after hundreds of tries, and from the analysis and evaluation you do after each one. Next time you set a big business goal remember to swing for the distance and learn from the last few inches.
How do you use sports or your hobby as a source of analogies? Share your examples through our comment link.
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