So generally speaking, many of us think way too small. We think too small about what we want to achieve in our businesses, careers, and lives. That’s why, today, we’re going to go through an exercise that will force us to think a little bit different. It’s an excellent tool to help expand the horizon of your limitations.
First, a question: why do we think so small?
Oftentimes, it’s simply how we were raised. Or because over time, we’ve shot high and gotten beaten down, and we just feel defeated. Perhaps we were pressured by the social norms, or by the community/class from which we came. All of these things hold us back from thinking bigger. Maybe we want to have a false sense of security. We don’t want to go too big because there’s too much fear involved. Maybe it’s a disappointment we had over a past failure still haunting us today.
As you can see, there’s a variety of reasons why we think too small. To combat that, we’re going to look at something called the 10x rule. This concept was very loosely taken from a book I just finished, and I think the way I’m applying it is not exactly how this book intended. But while I don’t wholeheartedly endorse the book, I do love the principle behind it. It goes something like this:
Imagine, just to keep the numbers simple, that you want to earn $10,000 a month in personal income. Well, what if we 10x that? What if, as opposed to wanting to bring in $10,000 a month, let’s just go ahead and shoot for $100,000 a month. It doesn’t matter if that number is something you can’t even imagine achieving. Drop the doubt and start asking yourself how you’re going to earn $100,000/month. As you do so, a lot of challenges and questions will come up, such as:
– As a salesperson, am I even able to deliver that much? Perhaps my company or the company I work for doesn’t have the capacity or the stock necessary. So is it actually possible to sell and deliver $100k in goods or services per month?
– How many people would I need to talk to? How many presentations would I need to make in order to actually bring in that much revenue?
– If I’m a one-person show right now, can I add more people to my team in order to make this happen? What kind of team would I need to create in order to sell that much?
– Perhaps I have to look at the scalability of my sales. Maybe I can’t just sell one-to-one anymore. I have to start selling one-to-group.
– I need to take a look at my marketing. It needs to change completely because there’s no way I can create enough leads to make $100,000 a month in sales.
That’s how the principle works: you think about a big, huge, massive result that you want, and let it raise a lot of questions, let it create some problems that you have to answer to. Next, you must look at the activity that’ll be necessary to get to your goal, which in our example is $100,000/month, or 10x our original goal of $10,000 a month.
It makes sense that if you 10x your goal, you should also 10x your activity. Most people, even those who dream big, drastically underestimate the amount of activity it takes to reach your goal. Don’t be one of them. Figure out the actions required to reach your goal, and go for it. And as you go through this exercise with your own career or business, listen, you don’t have to follow the 10x rule strictly. You can double your goal to $20k a month and go from there. You’re still thinking bigger than before, but it won’t be as far out of reach.
So that’s a little bit about the 10x principle. Go out, think big, and make it happen. Have a better than amazing day.
