Design & Achieve Your Goals with Creative Thinking
Step 8: Inventing Subgoal Ideas
Once you have a set of subgoals, think about how you will accomplish each. In some cases it will be obvious, for example if one of your subgoals is to learn to swim, then swimming lessons would be an obvious requirement. In other cases, it may not be so obvious, for example if one of your subgoals is to publicise the grand opening of your piano tuning business, there will be many options available to you.
In some cases, you may anticipate substantial challenges in achieving a subgoal. In this case, you may need to return to Step 7 and consider breaking the subgoal into separate subgoals. In other cases, you may need to think deeply about how to accomplish the subgoal and plan to invest time, money, effort or a combination of them in pursuing it.
The aim of this step is to work out how you can complete each subgoal. And we are going to use some creative thinking methods here.
Action
Take each subgoal on your list, think about how you will accomplish it and write down your ideas. If the answer is obvious, write it down. Then take a moment and ask yourself, “how else might I achieve this?” See if you come up with alternative solutions. Sometimes these alternative methods are more appealing than the obvious method.
In cases where there are multiple ways of achieving a subgoal, or where it is not immediately obvious how you might go about achieving it, you need to do a little personal brainstorming. Write the subgoal on a sheet of paper and ask yourself in what ways you might achieve it. Write down the unique, creative and crazy ideas you invent. You do not need to write down the obvious or boring ideas. That will make it easier to review your options. Also, write down any idea you feel good about doing. Even if such an idea is not the best, if you feel good about it, it will be easier to perform.
In some cases, you will come up with ideas that are not immediately viable. Perhaps they will cost more money than you have available in your budget. Perhaps they require skills that you do not possess. When this happens, you need to brainstorm further with these ideas. There are various questions you can ask yourself to stimulate ideas, for instance:
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Are there ways I can do something similar for €5,0000 instead of €25,000?
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Are there ways I can acquire these services from others aside from paying for them? (For instance, bartering services or offering equity or partnership in a new business venture).
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How might I find a trustworthy person to perform this service for me?
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How might I find the money to do this? (For instance, sponsorship, investors or loans)
This will take some time and I recommend you ask friends and family for their suggestions on how to accomplish subgoals. Don’t be afraid to ask people you do not know too well. If you meet someone at a party or club who has achieved something similar to what you wish to do, ask her for advice. You will most likely find she will happily give it. It is a rare human who does not want to show off her achievements.
As you progress, you will also need to make decisions about which of your ideas to apply. With each subgoal, decide which ideas are best for achieving the goal. But when you do this, think about your criteria. “Best” should never be synonymous with “most conventional”. Rather, the best ideas probably meet criteria like these:
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Which ideas will best accomplish the subgoals
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Which ideas will best fit in with your overall goal.
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Which ideas will accomplish or help accomplish other subgoals. For instance, if your goal is to renovate an old house, equipment or materials you need to buy may be useful in accomplishing several subgoals.
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Which ideas will go with the flow. Keeping with the renovation scenario, ideas that follow a consistent style or theme throughout the house would go with the flow. Ideas which are a jarring departure would not.
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Which ideas are most compelling to do. After all, you will have to perform all these tasks in order to achieve your subgoals and eventually your goal. Tasks that are more fun or more rewarding will be easier to get enthusiastic about.
These decisions need not be set in stone and can be changed as you progress. As you decide how you achieve later subgoals, you may realise you need to change the way you perform earlier ones. No worries. Just do it!
Also, please be aware that there is no correct number of subgoals. You may have two. You may have 20. It depends on your goal and how you like to work.
I will publish the 12 step Designer Goals process over the next few days. Here are the steps we will do together.
- Introduction (This page!)
- Acknowledge personal responsibility.
- Define your goal or ambition.
- Question your goal.
- Reframe your goal.
- Imagine achieving your goal.
- Identify subgoals you need to take to live that dream.
- Build ideas for achieving subgoals.
- Putting it all together
- Build to-do and don’t-do lists
- Using your imagination
- Get started!
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