Take Aim with Success and Failure

When you’re setting out to achieve anything important to you, we highly recommend completing the following four steps in the order that makes most sense to you.

Write the answers down and form your own 2×2 to keep using as your pursuit of the achievement gets under way.

Reading time: 5 minutes

What to do

Write the answers down and form your own 2×2 to keep using as your pursuit of the achievement gets under way.

  1. Describe the WHAT and the HOW that makes up the Acceptable Success that you’re setting out to achieve.
  2. Describe the WHAT and the HOW that makes up the Unacceptable Success that you don’t want to find yourself having to deal with.
  3. Describe the WHAT and the HOW that makes up the Unacceptable Failure that you want to ensure will never be a situation you’ll find yourself in.
  4. Describe the WHAT and the HOW that makes up the Acceptable Failure that you might find yourself experiencing and will give you the opportunity to learn and grow stronger from it.

To get the most value from this tool you might want to watch our video which goes into more detail about this approach before filling it in.

Now that you’ve completed all four boxes, it’s time to ensure you regularly check in with your progress.

Next Steps

As your performances get underway ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Am I still on track for the Acceptable Success? Am I PERFORMING HOW I aimed to, as well as still being on track to get the result I want?
  2. If it looks like my Result isn’t guaranteed, am I making sure I’m even more focused on HOW I’m performing to ensure I’m maintaining my standards and markers of pride and satisfaction in HOW I perform?
  3. If I’ve got really high confidence in getting the result that I want, am I making sure I’m not compromising future successes or taking short term additional benefits that might turn this into an Unacceptable Success by dropping my standards or becoming complacent?
  4. Am I doing the regular checks of professional standards to make sure that there’s no chance of an Unacceptable Failure becoming a possibility?

When the Performance is over and the Result is in, use the matrix to double check the nature of achievement and then use the learning from this latest performance to help you Take Aim with even more power and confidence next time around.