Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals: Blonde Don’t Live Here No More
Hey!
Thanks for coming back. It's great to see you again!
Have you started your '30 Days to Renaissance' journey yet? See the sidebar to sign up.
Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals – BHAGs. These are the stuff entrepreneurial dreams are made of. BHAGs are motivating, 
inspiring, and often take more than a minute or two to complete. In fact, sometimes it can take years to bring a BHAG to fruition.
But there’s an even bigger, more hairy audacious obstacle that prevents many entrepreneurs from ever attaining their BHAG.
Distractions. Entrepreneurs have a horrible time with this. We’re constantly distracted by the ideas that float into our brains. Great ideas, though they may be, we’re often found floating from idea to idea, never really completing anything.
Several terms have been concocted to describe this condition. Shiny object syndrome is a pervasive problem amongst entrepreneurs. According to one study, about 50% of entrepreneurs demonstrate ADHD tendencies, and becoming distracted is a big issue.
So if you have big, clearly defined goals, what can you do to stay on track?
For me, it took dying my hair a bright, shiny, platinum blonde color.
From This...
To This
I took a LOT of flak for this change. And the comments (to my face) ranged from “Oh GAWD! What were you thinking?” to “Wow! You look AMAZING!” – and everything in between. I can only imagine some of the snickering that went on behind closed doors.
Deciding to go blonde had nothing to do with having more fun, or really even about being more visible – although those were possible side effects. For me, there was a deeper meaning to embracing my “inner blonde”.
It was a constant, daily reminder of three BHAGs I needed to accomplish in my life.
Every morning I wake up, I look in the mirror and see this face, surrounded by this hair – an unavoidable reminder of things left undone. Things that MUST be completed before my hair goes back to a more, um, natural shade.
I could have chosen a less outspoken color, but part of the shift that needed to happen in me was being able to embrace my outspoken nature. And the other goals I’ll talk more about at my live event this fall.
Some people can use a vision board, or write it down, or do a daily visualization and consistently hold those goals in their mind. Some people can plug it into a computer, a PDA or have someone else hold them accountable. I’m not one of those people. Ink washes away. Strings break. Kids spill stuff on your PDA, delete your hard drive, and decide to color on your vision board.
I needed something indelible. Something that wouldn’t rub off, wash off, or get lost in the translation. So about this time last year, I made the leap from dark brown to blonde (with a pit stop at orange. There’s a picture somewhere on Facebook, I think. It’s horrible.).
In the intervening year, my “daily reminder” was met by occasional snide remarks – even from family and friends. The suggestions to “pick a more flattering color”, the questioning, and the outright assumptions on the part of most people were more examples of how people don’t always ‘get it’ when we want to accomplish something huge. Sometimes our closest friends think they’re doing us a favor. They think they’re being supportive, but in reality, they’re trying to fit our BHAG into their world. People don’t understand (or care to understand) the motivation behind the transformation, they only judge the outward manifestation of the first step.
Crazy? Silly? Stupid? Unflattering? Perhaps. But I didn’t go blonde to please you. I didn’t even do it to please me.
The thing about changing your hair color to something VERY different from your natural color is that it requires work to maintain. You can’t just quit when the going gets tough – or another distraction comes along.
When the roots come in, you’ve got to decide to keep going or go back. Cut it off or let it grow. For me, this was a very visceral, tangible, and physical manifestation of my business and personal goals.
Do I quit just because it’s hard? Just because I haven’t reached my goal yet?
Do I cut myself off just because other people are telling me it can’t be done – or that I’m too (old, fat, young, smart, dumb, poor, educated, etc.)?
Do I keep going, or go back?
I chose (and continue to choose) to ‘let it grow’.
A couple of weeks ago, I hit goal number one of three. So blonde don’t live here no more.
My target is to complete goals two and three so that this whole “hairy goal” thing is ironed out by August – and settle on the final hair color for the rest of my 30′s.
Or until my next BHAG comes into view.
Diagnosis: You and Fear
In working with my inaugural class of clients for The Power of Focus project, the biggest reports coming in from the field show that fear keeps rearing it’s ugly head.
“Am I doing this right?”
“How do I know if I’m doing this right?”
That old demon, fear is rearing it’s ugly head again, tyring to keep you from realizing your greatness.
The fact is, the only way to know if you’re doing anything right is by actually doing it! Otherwise, you’re not doing ANYTHING!
It struck a chord when I read Seth Godin’s blog this morning. Read Everything Is Not Going To Be Okay and you’ll understand what I mean.
We all walk around wondering, hoping and wishing for someone to tell us that we’re on the right path – and that we’re doing the right thing.
As moms, we’re especially vulnerable. I remember when I first brought my son home from the hospital (who’s now a teenager). I said to my friends, “I wish babies came with instruction manuals.”
I was met with comforting words and encoruagement that I was “going to be a great mom.” and that I “would know what to do instinctively.”
They were wrong.
I struggled and struggled at trying to figure out how to be a mom. It’s like pouring salt on a snail and watching him shrivel up. That’s how I felt each and every day of his young life. I wasn’t prepared for 2am feedings when I had to be to work the next day. I didn’t understand why I had to pay for a week of day care if teh kid was only there for three days. There was so much that was pretty much left to chance when my son was small that I began to feel like I was doing everything wrong.
So I came home, where my family offered a modicum of support.
Whether that was “the best” choice or not, I’ll never know, but it was the only one I felt I had at the time. Doing what you believe to be right in the moment is sometimes all you have to go on. Questioning that decsion only leads to indecision, stagnation, and more fear.
What happened when I returned? It was like being a child all over again – being told what to do and how I was doing everything wrong. I remember one of my aunts telling me my child would end up in prison if I kept on raising him the way I was.
Of course, that was before his diagnosis. Before the diagnosis, I was viewed as a horrible mother with a problem child. After the diagnosis, I was “doing the best I could in a situation with a special needs child”.
Funny how the dime turned, huh? I thought so, anyway.
So here’s your diagnosis: You’re doing the best you can in your given situation. Don’t let the unknowing, disapproving looks from family or friends screw with your brain. You’ll never know if what you’re doing is the perfect solution to any problem until the end of time, when you look back and assess the full value of the life you’ve lived. If you spend all your time now wondering, you’ll never live the life you were called to fulfill.
Fear likes to keep you in a space where it thinks you’re safe. Hey, you’re not dead yet, so you must be doing okay. That’s hogwash. Fear doesn’t understand that you need to take a step or a leap out of your “comfort zone” to be the person - the mom, the busness owner – you truly want to be. It only understands that you’re trying something new, something it hasn’t experienced before, and what if everything isn’t okay?
It won’t be okay. It will be uncomfortable at best and excruciatingly painful at worst. Just know it, accept it, and plow through. There’s fear in the doing, but most often, hen we come out on the other side of the doing, we are much better for the experience.