What separates a goal from an adventure? And takes an adventure from insipid and lackluster to juicy and fired up? Find out in this post.
Four simple things can help us make the leap from dry, dusty goal to a year of inspired living and a total adventure. If you have your goal in hand, see if it meets these four criteria.
1. It's gotta be true love. Adventures evoke our longing. They ask us to expand our sense of self and life.
If your dream is going to keep you going through the rough times and the good, it needs to spark your emotions. It needs to be worth trying and failing for, over and over again. Ask yourself if your dream is hitting the right emotions in you?
Does it include, not just your physical transformation (lose 20lbs, be debt free, make six figures, move to Paris) but your emotional transformation (feel sexy and own every room in my fantastically fit body, become free from financial worries and feel competent in my finances, up my self worth to that of a wealthy woman, romance my life in Paris). .
2. It has to be bigger than you and your life as it stands right now.
Adventures are big. It has to stretch you and your world in order to get you the change you really want. In fact, it's gotta be a little too big. Does your dream give you the "Who do you think you are?" vibes?
Does it feel a little impossible? Good. That's a sign it's big enough to force you to change. If not, make it bigger until it feels slightly dangerous.
3. It's Uncharted Territory -- for you.
You don't know how you'll do it. There isn't a ready made map for your adventure, for where you're going, because you never been there before. It's uncharted territory.
Maybe someone else has don't it, but they aren't you. They aren't your age, your gender. They haven't started in exactly the same place as you. So you're going to have to make the map as you go along.
If you've done it before or you've already been there, it's not big enough. It's not an adventure. Choose something bigger. Something you haven't done before, and that you're not quite sure how it's done.
4. It defies your limits and the odds.
An adventure is going to bring up some fear. It's too big. It can be done. It's impossible. It's not meant for someone like you. In fact, it's going to require that you defy the odds and the expectations of the people in your world.
An adventure means hearing all the negative chatter and saying "Oh, yeah? Wanna bet?" That's what makes it fun and a little scary. If your goal doesn't make you shake in your boots as well as excited? It's not big enough yet. Go bigger.
If you take your goal and make it big enough to meet these four criteria, you will find yourself on an adventure filled with the excitment and va-va-voom to get you through hard times, monotonous times, and the discomfort of change. And at the end you will find yourself, not just with a met goal, but with a complete transformation of your life. That's gotta be worth it.