library goals

Hello Librarians!  Thanks for joining me. Today, I’m sharing my top two tips for achieving your library, or even your personal, goals. It’s a short episode and you’ll find the full show notes at masterfullibrarian.com/ep-23.

My first tip, that I’ve talked about before, is to take one small step at a time.  Identify one small action, schedule the time to take that action on your calendar, and then follow through. It’s simple. 

I’ve done an entire episode on the idea of small steps, so if you’d like to hear more about that, please listen to my episode, Small Steps Toward Big Library Impact. You can find that one at masterfullibrarian.com/ep-5.

My second top tip for achieving your goals is to stop trying.  You heard me right.  Stop trying. Stop striving, exerting tons of effort, or working around the clock. Just relax and let go. 

Does this mean to do nothing at all?  Absolutely not!  You have to take those small steps I just mentioned.  But the harder your try to attain something, the further it will recede from you.  It’s called the Law of Reversed Effort and it’s a universal truth whether you want it to be or not. 

Ideally, we will live our lives and complete our responsibilities with effortless effort.  Allowing ourselves to stay relaxed and focused and in the flow. 

We all have heard about great athletes and masters of other skills who get into what is often called the “zone”.  When they’re in that space, they aren’t striving or trying hard. They’re focusing, relaxing, and allowing something greater than their worried little minds to act through them to accomplish their goal.  This is effortless effort. 

 Most of us still believe we can control our lives and it’s simply not true.  The more we try to control and force outcomes, the more we will be disappointed.  When we cling tightly to a certain order of events or a specific outcome, the more we tighten up and constrict and that makes it awfully hard to create anything. 

Think about drawing a picture or writing a poem.  If you sit down with paper and paints or pencil and make yourself create a beautiful work of art, I guarantee you it will not come easily - if it comes at all. The more we try to force inspiration, the less we’ll have.  This holds true with our daily working life, our professional and institutional goals, and our personal dreams and responsibilities.  It holds true for all facets of our lives.  

The harder we try, the less  we will achieve. 

The key?  Set your vision, see it concretely, identify and take your first step toward that vision,  then let go of the rest.  Relax and feel yourself expand and open to the infinite ways your vision can become reality – or possibly not become reality.  Sometimes the universe has other ideas for us beyond what we can possibly imagine.

And those ideas are always so much better than anything we could envision. As Allen Saunders wrote and John Lennon sang, “"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans”. It rarely goes the way we expected it to.

So for today, at least, allow yourself to let go.  Know that your goals and dreams are attainable with effortless effort. Allow yourself to enter a relaxed focus and expand and tap into the powerful creative current of life.  

Row your boat gently down that stream and I believe you’ll soon arrive exactly where you need to be and you’ll be pleased with that destination.