Why You Can’t Fall in Love with the Hows

It's one thing to develop an internal fire for a particular mission…

a dedication to offering a solution to particular group of people, an enthusiasm for bridging the gap between where the people you serve are and where they want or need to be.

It's another thing entirely to fall in love with a specific way of doing it.

When you come up with your product, your service, your Super Unique Way of Teaching This Subject, it might make perfect sense to you, and it might seem like the clearest, most effective, efficient method ever devised. You might get stars in your eyes and butterflies in your stomach and a rush of happy excitement every time you even think about it.

Even then, you cannot fall in love with it.

Because even when your product or service or Super Unique Way of Teaching This Subject seems like the best, clearest, most effective, efficient method ever devised to you, it might not seem that way to the people you're trying to help or teach or serve.

And it is only those peoples' perceptions that matter.

• If a product isn't selling, maybe it's not the right product for your people.
• If a service isn't having the outcomes you expected, maybe it's not the right service for your people.
• If a method of marketing isn't generating responses, maybe it's not the right method of marketing for your people.
• If a lecture you're giving to a kid isn't “getting through,” maybe it's not the right way talking to reach that kid. (You knew it wasn't *only* applicable to business, right?)

Be dedicated to your mission, but don't be attached to how you achieve it.

If you want to be successful, you have to allow room to be adaptable in the hows.

You might even have to let go of ideas that you personally loved and thought were near perfect. In fact, if you pursue any goal long enough, it's all but guaranteed that you'll have to let go of many of those “…but it seemed so perfect!” ideas. It's okay. Let them go.

There are always more “hows” than you initially realize. Always. But the more attached you get to one of them, the fewer alternatives you'll see.

Keep this in mind:

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If you start getting overly attached to the How, refer back to that graphic.

Notice the How is at the very bottom. Getting too attached to a specific How risks everything above it. How can you be giving proper energy and attention to the What, Who and Why and if you're too attached to a specific How?

(Hint: You can't.)

To seeing the bigger picture,