Have you ever wondered why we sometimes get stuck and can’t seem to reach a goal? My observation is most of the time we fail to create a mental postcard. Chip and Dan Health discuss this topic among many in their fine book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.
We bash ourselves over the head with logical reasons why we need to do things or with the logical reasons of others, but we typically fail to motivate our emotional side. We fail to create an image that inspires our emotional side to rally behind the goal.
One of my good friends works in the bio-fuels industry. He is a brilliant person, originally educated as an economist, with enough talent to write his own ticket. Yet he has struggled. He bucks against organization and planning, and this has caused him to fall short of his potential.
Then he created a mental postcard of what he wanted to do within the bio-fuels industry and he realized he couldn’t get there without fine-tuning his professionalism. I noticed this first hand during a recent presentation on biodiesel.
I was mesmerized by how every story and fact supported what he wanted to communicate. He was organized and polished. And it was a speech that in the end earned him significant business, propelling him well down the path of his mental postcard.
There is a Buddhist proverb that states, “If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” When you create the mental postcard of what you want to accomplish, you face yourself in the right direction. And you motivate your emotional side to put on its walking shoes.