Aim Small, Miss Small

Amateur golfers try to put the ball in the hole. The best in the world, however, select a single blade of grass to hit. Marksmen are the same. You don’t shoot at the target you want to hit, you shot at a tiny part of the bigger target. The idea, of course, is that when your focus is finer you might very well miss, but you won’t miss the whole target all together. Your misses become smaller along with the size of your focus. 

Now, of course, this isn’t a Sharpshooters Anonymous community, so it’s my job to bring home why they hell I’m trying to improve your shooting accuracy. I’m not. 

The reason for mentioning this is naturally in an effort to use this maxim beyond the hand eye coordination sports and into your life.  For all intents and purposes, we’ll say that a target might as well be a synonym for a “goal” and we’ve all got those. 

The trouble is you’ll miss just like the amateur shot at a general goal like “I want to be a better father.”  Increase your specificity and I’d venture to bet that, while you might not sink your goals easy as pie, you’ll get closer than you otherwise would and that’s a utility worth pursuing. “I want to engage with my kids in activity outside of the house more than twice per week,” for example.

What is the blade-of-glass-like focus version of your goals? Aim there.