What is your First Domino?

I was inspired to write this buzz after reading Self insight and growth in retirement by Royce Shook .  What I enjoyed most about his buzz was most about creating goals. 

Almost all of my life, I have always been told that to finish a race or reach a goal, I had first know what it was. Than with hard work, and consistent action I will succeed.  I still believe this. The problem was I did not always know what I wanted. So, how could I finish a race if I didn't know where the finish line.

Before I had any personal goals, I blindly followed the goals society placed in front of me. Whenever I did find something I wanted to achieve, most of the time, I achieved them using a method called "Chunking".  This is where one take a large dream and breaks into smaller achievable goals.

In this buzz, I want to share "The Domino Effect of goal setting". It is almost the same. This goal setting method is more for someone who doesn't have a concrete dream, yet has a "I want to go this direction" inspiration. 

Let me explain. If one already knows what they want, and the date they want it, then they can create a plan of action to achieve it. That plan can now be "Chunked" down into smaller and daily steps. But, if someone mindset is saying, "If I could just tackle THIS, then this would fall into place." This is where the "Domino Effect of goal setting" is useful. Instead of working backwards to create plan of action, it is like working forward and seeing where it takes you. 

It may be tough to swallow, but big success doesn’t happen all at once. Success is sequential. The majority of my life, I have lived day to day, week to week with a "Domino" mindset. It is not always effective, and sometimes creates masterpieces. 

In 2004, Robert Weisberg of Temple University put together a case-study of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica and found that even the greats don’t rely on “strokes of genius”.

Largely considered one of, if not the definitive piece he produced during his career, the painting is seemingly sporadic and unique, and evolved to become a symbol of the Spanish Civil War. On first inspection, it certainly looks like the result of a sudden flash of inspiration. However, Weisberg’s analysis identified core pieces of his painting in his previous work, suggesting the masterpiece was actually the culmination of long chain of dominos that were knocked over continuously throughout his career.

When Weisberg took a close look at the actual development of the painting, he noticed that Picasso, a painter famed for his wild creativity, actually worked from a process.

Instead of coming up with one idea after the other, Picasso began with a simple vision and pursued it from a small starting point. His first sketch began with the end in mind and formed an extremely rough outline of a woman, a horse, and a bull – his first domino. From there he continued to knock over domino after domino, focusing on the outline, each character and object individually and, with few exceptions, sequentially. After 45 sketches and nearly a month’s time, he had more or less created Guernica with no guesswork involved.

If you want to accomplish something BIG in your life, you have to work from a process — you have to line up your dominos. You must always have another "Domino" to knock over. 

Your next Domino for the year, may be a goal that needs the method of "Chunking" to make it smaller. But, if it were gone, what would be next. Some of us, can't even answer that question? We have focused on that one Big Domino in our life, we didn't realize their could be another right behind it knock over when it fell.

ALWAYS BE THINKING, "WHAT CAN I TACKLE THAT EVERYTHING ELSE BECOMES EFFORTLESS AND EVEN UNNECESSARY?"