This Christmas, my partner gave me a bird feeder as a gift. It’s the type of feeder that gets hung from a tree. We hung it from tree that is close to a fence, and where we could reach the branch easily. Equipped with bird food, we were looking forward to the visitors.

The birds came and – to our surprise – a squirrel was able to reach the feeder from the fence. Here’s what it looks like:

 

What a great representation of a stretch goal!

What you don’t see on the photo is that the lower foot keeps sliding down. Because of this, the squirrel has to move it up continuously to stay in place. The squirrel holds on to the fence only with the toes of the upper foot. What you also don’t see is that the squirrel didn’t reach the feeder at first. In its first attempts, it couldn’t hold on to the feeder and – with the foot holding on to the fence – it fell forward and flatly hit the fence. Only after some (seemingly, a little painful) practice, did it reach its goal.

This made me think of my own goals. How much risk am I willing to take to reach something new (Josef vs Squirrel: 0-1), how much am I willing to ‘stretch’ and get a little uncomfortable (Josef vs Squirrel: 0-2) and how much do I need to hold on to something familiar as I reach out to something new (Josef vs Squirrel: 0-3). Time to rethink my goals!

Take the next step

How much are you stretching to reach your important goals? What would be a real stretchgoal for you? How much could you achieve if your goals were real stretch goals? Time to rethink your goals?