Day 7–100 Days Being Visible
Speculate on possibilities before committing to action
I do not yet have clear goals for my 100 Days Being Visible project. I do think, however, that without a challenging and inspiring goal I will cruise along and do just enough to look like I am involved in the project and end up disappointed with my results.
Three interpretations of the concept of a goal come to mind (and I am sure there are many more). There is the aspirational goal that shows the way like the proverbial light-on-a-hill. You may never reach the light but it provides context and direction. Another is a goal that is a firm commitment or promise to oneself or to another person. The third interpretation relates to game playing where the goal of a game is to win the game while playing within the constraints of the rules.
When I think of this project, I want a goal that is more than just an inspirational light in the distance but without the sense of earnestness that comes with making a promise. I like the idea of defining the rules of a game. Something I like about games is that you can train hard and play seriously while still knowing that you are playing a game. I have decided to use the game analogy and define the rules of my ‘100 Days Being Visible’ game.
I had a ‘conversation for possibility’ with my partner today about how I might define the criteria for winning the game. A conversation for possibility is speculative and carried out in a mood of curiosity and wonder. The ideas that are produced are possible actions, rather than commitments to take action. We speculated over a beer and a burger and continued to speculate on a three-hour intercity drive.
Some of the ideas took my breath away and some seemed underwhelming. On the underwhelming end was declaring winning as writing 100 Medium articles in the 100 days and nothing more than that. While one hundred articles would be more than I have ever written, I can see that I can achieve it with the knowledge I already have. At the take my breath away end would be to define winning as “run webinars on May 19th and June 16th 2021 to sell my on-line leadership course, each webinar having more than 25 participants and achieving a 20% sign up rate”. To win this game, I would quickly need to design promotional gameplays and an irresistible offer that provided huge value to participants. I would need to be very visible online for the next 93 days.
I am not yet committing to a goal. I have speculated on possible goals and will continue to speculate for a little longer before I declare an update to my rules for playing the game ‘100 Days Being Visible”.
Knowledge
I have used my knowledge of ‘conversations for the possibility’ (see, for example, Fernando Flores’s work on Conversations for Action), to speculate on possible goals for my 100 Days project and resisted committing prematurely to a specific goal.
Progress
I am comfortable sitting a little longer in the question of ‘what goal shall I set for this project?” I have speculated on possible goals and discovered some that inspire me and some that do not. I have also completed my seventh blog and the first week of my 100 Days project. Again, I have progressed.
7/7/100 (Number of days goals met/ number of days into project/ 100)
Goto the Previous Day or Next Day