Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Introducing The bridge building process to get from where you are to where you want to be
One of the hardest thing for people, as I see, is to come up with the bridge between a dream and actions.
You can have the most amazing dream for the future, for a business, if you don’t know what actions to take to get there the dream will remain a dream… unfulfilled.
In my participation in Landmark Education courses and programs I always volunteered to be group leader or coach…
The biggest issue people faced, even if they didn’t talk about it, is the unbridgeable gap between where they were and where they wanted to be.
It is painful for everyone, but if you are in a program that ‘forces you’ to create a vision, then it is even more painful. It is discouraging, damaging to your self-image: you feel like the odd man out, the only loser.
But please know: this is totally normal. What is missing is not your fault: what is missing is a process. A process to get to the core of things… so you can build some legs…
What do I mean by legs?
If you look at an old bridge, like an aqueduct, you’ll see that every maybe ten meters there is a ‘leg’… a pier, whatever you want to call it.
And to get to the other side of a valley or a river, you may need ten-twelve ‘legs’…
In project management they have milestones, but that is a whole other way to get a project done: not my favorite, and I don’t recommend it.
Let’s see a real life example:
a client of mine, William, wants to be able to work from anywhere in the world…
He is a rehabilitative trainer… He has a brick and mortar business, a gym, and there he trains weight lifters… but he is starting to really distinguish himself as an expert in overcoming bodily weak points, or previous injuries effectively, so the person can be and can stay active and strong and pain free.
If we look at his dream end point, the other side of the valley. We see him in New Zealand, or some other far away location. He is having a laptop, video equipment, and a business. A business that makes him enough money to continue traveling, without a permanent location.
He most certainly has a way to make money without being present… so he has online home study courses. And most certainly he has an email list of people who want to buy his stuff.
So when we go back to the starting point, what we need to decide what are the major pillars… and we see: it is online courses and an email list.
But how do you start?
You have options. I would start with online courses. Why? because he would prefer building a buyers’ list. meaning he would offer courses, inexpensive mixed with expensive to take people who have some issue, injury or weakness, that they need to address.
So, at this point the distance between point A and point B has three spans…
But the spans are still too wide… so next he would look: what do he need to do to fill his courses?
And he would see articles, podcasts, guest articles, guest podcasts, and referrals.
That is an additional five legs… are you catching on?
Superman delusion
Somehow we, humans, the smartest things on this planet, think that we can jump over to the other side. Or alternatively we can do a hodge podge of actions and magically find ourselves there…
Not. Going. To. Happen.
You could have a point B in business, like William’s project. Or you could have a point B in health, relationships, social causes, your job, anywhere.
The methodology is the same… you look and look from the accomplishment. Look from point B, what must have you already have there to be there. And from that you start seeing the elements of success as a bridge that needs many piers. Piers, if that is what it’s called. Legs, as I call them.
Each distance between legs is a project on its own right. Going from A to Z has about 20 legs…
Using my example, going from sick to healthy:
I am still at the very first span: eliminating the life sucking mites that don’t let me sleep soundly. It is tricky, and I have been making mistakes. So it has been taking a lot longer than I thought.
For you technical people: we are building arch bridges… the oldest type…
Each arch is the span and distance between piers…
Each arch, in my experience, is best built with 2-4 actions that build that span… and the next leg.
In my mites ‘span’ it is:
1. not eating anything the mites like (animal protein)
2. increasing the acidity of the stomach or alternatively add a protein digesting enzyme, like Papain hourly.
I already know the next span will be getting my sleep to improve… At present it is 50% sleep quality… and what I need to do is increase it to 75%… given my age and everything, that is what 20% of my efforts can accomplish.
I use only the most effective methods, the 20% action that produces 80% of the results… instead of doing everything I can think of.
You can see that there is a system, there is a process, and there is a sense of success every step of the way.
This is a process I have never seen described, never seen taught.
But even if it were taught, something is still missing. The WHO are you, who are you going to be to do this and to succeed at this.
There are many ways to approach this question, all of them are valid to a degree… and none of them covers all the bases.
- One approach is to look at the accomplishment and borrow its inspiration to decide that you are that who accomplished that, who gives that to the world… Very attractive, and yet.
Looking for inspiration in the end product has a tendency to make you live in the ‘not yet’.
- I prefer another approach where every moment is enjoyable, not because of the end result, not because you like what you are doing necessarily, and you may, but because who you have declared yourself to be.
Your purpose in life. Your new identity.
- Back in 1987 I declared myself brilliant and a contribution, and it worked to a degree…
- Then I declared myself as a publishing empire, and that got me some good months… not even years.
- Then I declared myself as authenticity and dignity in an area of life where there is none…
It gave me wings for seven whole years… then it wasn’t enough.
- And thereafter the invented purpose, the inversion of my biggest complaint is what is keeping me proud of myself, giving me energy to move forward and not give up, giving me strength to get better, to grow:
Who I am is living on the edge, generating distinctions of transformation for humankind.
Obviously the best chances you have for a life well lived if you have a structure, a support structure that keeps you straight and out of trouble, that catches you when you wander off the path you set.
But you won’t need any of it unless you have a project, unless you have an unfulfilled desire, an unfulfilled dream.
You can call this method also the Gap Method, or the Process method… it is based on the ‘Law of Process‘…
PS: I wrote this article almost two years ago. William has since gone awol. So I assume that this process based building wasn’t to his liking.
But it works. And you have something to celebrate almost daily. Small victories.
PPS: This type of process is also called ITERATIVE.
What prevents people from doing their projects this way is the illusion that they should be able to get to the end in one fell swoop, instead of through many small projects.
Each ‘failure’ teaches something new, and makes the project richer and better.
But if your fantasy that you never make a ‘wrong step’ or you are stupid, or you are yourself a failure, i.e. your ‘precious I’ cannot take it then this process is not for you.
You may need to adjust your ‘precious I’ to humbler…
