The art of the feasible consists of devoting your efforts on ventures, having a real impact in the world (your and that of the others!). Most people do not realize that. Think that dreaming of doing things is the same as actually doing them. The net result is that the output is never in the level of the dreaded one and almost never, does not offer hard-core output in life. And that creates a lot of frustration, stress, and anxiety, creating the divorce of real valuable bits and pieces of good raw data, ideas and approaches from its implementation!
Most people, foster a lot of ideas, aiming at better their professional or/and personal lives. The act of dreaming things is a basic link to the chain of innovations, new ideas creation and creativity in general, but, should be made clear, that dreaming is not the same as acting, it is just a first step. The act of dreaming is the only presupposition for the implementation of things in a process is not either lucid or unstructured. This misunderstanding is the cause of suffocating many ideas, that should make an impact if their originators have the patience and persistence to benchmark them against the (business or other) realities.
3 Acts You Should Initiate & Acknowledge Yourself In
The art of feasible (i.e. the approach of bringing something you imagine in its real – business – proportions, within the boundaries of a reality or status quo, including all the implementation, financial, business, or other restrictions!) is based on solid principles and follows specific rules.
In order to drive effectively yourself, towards what is possible, you have to become the producer and the lead star in 3 different and distinct acts (plays!):
- The first act is to recognize your environment and yourself. To consider your strengths and weaknesses. To acknowledge yourself within your environment with your skills, knowledge, values, principles, attitudes, talents you may employ and what constraints and boundaries the environment may cause to your (intended) actions! To record them and evaluate them, put them in action, and test them in real conditions!
- The second act is to have a goal. To gather, collect and filter all the outputs of the act 1 and integrated them in the framework of a life plan. To set your basic core values and objectives your long-term, middle-term and short-term plans, your daily actions, to build or eliminate habits (if needed), to cultivate what’s gives you power and strength and negate to the things that draw them in directions you do not choose to go, to re-evaluate your modes of operation, to invest in yourself building new experience, resources, skills, knowledge, the re-affirm your anchors, principles and values, …, and ,
- The third act is to find the resources for implementing that goal(s). You are starting and base on the results of the 2 act and baby-build the realities, the strategies and tactics may you need in order to facilitate you towards your goals and objectives, the business models you want to implement, the startups you want to make, the modes of operation you want to employ (i.e. product or service deployment, training, coaching, facilitation, etc), the enablers you want to use the market (i.e. financial resources, technology, entrepreneurship, learning, training, …) and the necessary resources (if not available or applicable) for achieving your goals.
The Art Of The Feasible! – Some Steps
After you have initiated the procedures of identifying yourself and your environment, to set your goals and find the necessary resources you start to put your lucid ideas in the lab of reality. Having as constant compass and anchors results of the previous procedures, you start to test your ideas and dreams in real conditions, aiming at their implementation.
This procedure can be facilitated by various tools, but, generally as a procedure, consist of:
- Select and record all your ideas, dreams, approaches you want to bring (make!) to reality
- Select the ones which are most suitable for implementation, based on your capabilities, your resources, your environment, your business or other constraints, etc.
- Record the winners and the best candidates, and try to benchmark them against reality contains and factors
- Re-select one or two (ideally just one) for real implementation and focus all your energy and resources for a first (real) implementation. Store the rest (best) ideas and dreams to a trusted place for later re-evaluation
The Art Of Feasible in Real Terms
In this context, the art of the feasible consists of:
- To handle the reality, and not the things you have on your mind (i.e. Manage what’s there, and not what would like to be there).
- To know the rules of the game and act upon them. i.e. you can bend them towards a direction, but you cannot break them, or alter the game. If the name of the game is business, for instance, you must respect its rules. You can adjust them or even customize them, but you cannot obliterate them or negate them in the name of a higher cause(!) or any other justification.
- To enter the game, consciously and purposefully.
- Observe, Monitor and Evaluate in real terms what work and what is not
- To know that dreaming or goal setting is only the first step. You cannot expect any result if the only thing you do is dreaming and not doing. You schedule or planning the required results, and preparing their future outcome, keeping in mind all the above factors and constraints.
Perhaps the new situation, you will find yourself in (after you initiate the procedure of materializing or developing something new in the world), turns out to be only a game of manipulating old rules with new terms, or something entirely different! In any case, you should be able (i.e be prepared, ready) to handle everything may raise, since you are one of the main agents (if not the main accountable), responsible for its implementation.
That means you must be fully literate about the rules of the new environment you create or helped to be built (business, ecosystem, services, …), the ways of legitimate handle them, the ways of enhancing them in order to be more suitable to the existing environment and for the exit point (!) if the things are not gone in a pre-described way.
Question: Do you dreaming, a lot? Do you make your dreams happen? Do you practice the art of feasible, or not?