Are you ready to start working on your ? It’s the story you develop to introduce yourself in a professional setting. Only this story isn’t just built on your CV, it’s designed to incorporate the rest of your life as well. Read my blog post about the structure for an introduction.

The first thing you’ll need if you want to work on your personal professional story is a big audacious goal.

Now, setting a goal isn’t always easy. After all, they are supposed to be SMART, sometimes even SMARTer, and we have to plan moments to check in on ourselves, and then do the work of trying to achieve them.

This goal works a little differently. Basically, I want you to set a shoot the moon goal. You don’t have to get there. You have to commit to getting as close as you can, though. This goal will shape your story, so set the bar high for a great story.

Let me tell you how this works using the goals that came out of a workshop I gave last fall. This was for a conference of PhD students from the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Denmark. In the workshop, I asked them to set a big audacious goal. A lot of them didn’t dare. I get that. When you’re a student and life hinges on finishing your PhD – a monumental task – how can you think even bigger?

You can. With some instruction and encouragement, they came up with some astounding goals. One stuck with me. A participant told us they wanted a 100% cure rate for children with cancer with no side effects.

I had tears in my eyes when I wrote this on the flip chart. At that moment, in my mind and in my heart, I could feel all the pain that parents and children could be freed from. I imagined a world where parents didn’t have to fear losing their children, where children didn’t have to suffer disease and crippling side effects. I imagined families growing up together and having a future.

That’s what a big audacious goal can do to your audience.

How do you set your big audacious goal?

It’s EASY. You take the goal you’re comfortable with and make it Exclusive, Audacious, Sticky, and Yours.

You make it more exclusive by narrowing your target group, the group of people you want to have an impact on.

You make it audacious by taking your current goal to the next level.

You make it sticky by tapping into shared human emotions and experience.

You make it yours by committing to it.

Sound EASY to you?

Not to worry, I’ve prepared a worksheet for you that you can . Do the work on your goal and then come back and put your goal in the comments!

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