GAMA: A recursive Framework for achieving big bold hairy scary goals.

Life is a series of projects, goals and achievements. I remember many years ago in Campus sitting in the class IT Project Management and thinking to myself, Project management applies to all aspects of life. Whatever you want to achieve, simply treat it like a Project, Manage it that way and you are assured of success.

Since then I have sought to make meaning of everyday experiences and sieve them down to principles that I can replicate going forward. Having gone through the school of hard knocks, trial and error, success and failure, I have curated four steps for achieving any task you set your mind to accomplish.

Here are the steps;

1. Goal Setting
2. Align & Adjust
3. Measure Progress
4. Achieve

Lets break it down further;

Goal Setting

Effective Goal setting: Goal setting is a skill, a muscle that requires consistent learning and practice to improve and perfect.

Single-tasking: Write down 25(twenty-five) tasks you want to achieve, sieve them down to the 3(three) most important, these are what you need to concentrate on.

Align & Adjust

Calibrate: Talk to those who have already achieved what you have set out to accomplish and adjust your plan where necessary.

Radically seek feedback: Find 3 people whose direction and ambition matches your own; that is your squad. Be radically open with your squad, let them debate, tear down and build up you approach to actionable items. Equally give back to the squad.

Measure Progress

Metrics: How do you know you are making progress? Timelines and effort estimates are extremely important towards achieving your set goal.

Agile Approach: Break down the overall goal from Yearly deliverables to Semi annual deliverables to Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly, Daily, Hourly Deliverables. The small deliverable should feed the bigger in on the path to achieving the entire goal.

Achieve

Bias to Action: All the planning, research and discussion are a waste and a failure if you do not deliver.

Importance: This is the most important step of all. Goal Setting, Alignment & Adjustment and Metrics are all supposed to support delivery.

Put in the work. Fold your sleeves and get your hands dirty by doing the work required to achieve the set Goal.

Repeat – Bigger Bolder

Congratulations you have achieved you first Big Bold Hairy Scary Goal. You are now a bigger better you. Your attitude has changed you feel more confident like you can take on the entire world.

That’s right, You gat this! Pick that bigger bolder goal that you otherwise thought impossible and just like the previous one, double down hard and furious till you achieve it.

Conclusion

The journey is the destination! Celebrate and forget your achievement lest it holds you back from achieving greater things.

The journey of achieving one goal makes you stronger and more confident with a can do attitude and this is the most important outcome.

Who you become in the journey of achieving your set goals is more important than what you achieve.