This is one of my favorite ideas. Yes we need to dream big and believe in ourselves, but if we fail to consider this question, it can interfere with our success. What are the COSTS of achieving your goal? What do you have to give up in order to get there? We don't always give thought to what we would have to say NO to, in order to reach our goals. There are three levels of cost: 1. Personal Costs - like time, energy, money. You might have to give up being in your comfort zone.
2. Environmental costs. Consider how achieving success would influence those around you? Family? Friends? Work collegues? Would they have to give up something? Support from you? Certain habits or traditions? You can consider how they would benefit, but don't forget to consider any possible costs for them.
3. Universal Costs: There may even be wider costs for the world, like contributing to pollution or encouraging an undesirable political outcome. A great way to really get your head around these costs is to quantify them. On a scale of 1-10, how willing are you to give up your time for this? How willing are you to give up a work relationship in order to move to a new job? How willing are you to function outside your comfort zone? Low numbers can be pretty revealing in terms of where you stand in relation to your goal. Again, yes we SHOULD dare to dream, and dream BIG! (That's a whole other story -stay tuned!) But don't forget to consider: "If I'm saying yes to this, what am I saying no to?"
