Have you ever heard the phrase, “If it was easy, everyone would do it”? This can be applied to so many things in life from starting your own business, writing a book, becoming a professional athlete or actress, to even just achieving your personal goals.
If you want more out of life than the norm, try this Agile technique.
Relentless Pursuit of Roadblock Removal
Agile is a methodology often used in project management and software development, but we can learn from this approach for just about any type of project or situation in life. Agile involves an iterative and incremental approach to completing your project. You want to look for the minimum viable product to release to market then build upon it in future releases rather that try to do everything up front and have one big release at the end.
Agile also focuses around collaboration and making things visible where you clearly see your progress and visualize any roadblocks keeping your from your goal. I’ve had projects where we have launched to market more than 80% faster than other organizations just by what I like to call “relentless pursuit of roadblock removal”.
When we ran into a setback, instead of sending an email or waiting until the next meeting to bring it up, I literally picked up the phone and called the person that could help and said “We have hit a roadblock on the website migration project and cannot move forward until we resolve this. Can you help?” Then I wouldn’t get off the phone until we had a solution. Just this simple wording help us move past challenges at lightning speed.
Make Your Roadblocks Visible
When you think something is important but it isn’t getting done, why is that? Why do other things continually rise in importance? I’ve found that sometimes, there are small roadblocks that are holding us back that we may not even realize.
For example, when I was writing my last book, I had drafted out all of the chapter content in a few weeks, then it was just sitting there for months. I realized that I needed help to move forward and should involve an outside perspective. I hired an editor and we began iterating back and forth making more progress at each round of revisions.
If you want to get closer to your goals, try identifying what your roadblocks are and make them visible. Once you can visualize what’s blocking you from moving forward, you may realize that you could take one of several actions. You could schedule some time for yourself to focus on working through the roadblock. Although, if you were able to work through the roadblocks yourself then why haven’t you done it already?
Another option is that you could ask for help and find some accountability from someone else. Sometimes that could still take a while. I’ve noticed that when I hit a roadblock, it could be because something that I need to do doesn’t come naturally for me and I realize I should outsource something or find someone that is more of an expert in that area. You could pay someone else to do something they are already good at to help you get closer to your goals.
Be Around What You Want
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard when you want to achieve something that may seem out of reach is to find someone that is already doing what you want to do and watch them, study them, learn from them. Offer to add value to what they are doing just to be around an environment aligned with your dream. Donate your time or volunteer to help, so that you can elevate your current state and level experience.
Don’t try to jump head first into business when you haven’t done it before. Start by studying it, get involved, look at what you can learn from others.
I didn’t just start my own business out of the blue. I watched how other people started their businesses. I offered to help a friend with their business and I invested financially in helping that business grow. When it came time for me to go out on my own, I already had learned about the business world, the challenges, what works, what doesn’t. You don’t have to discover all the roadblocks yourself first hand. Find a way to learn from others on what roadblocks to avoid.
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This article was first published on Inc.com on the Agile Insights Column by Maria Matarelli