Scaffold Your January Dreams

No more February forgets or December defeats

(A January toast to scaffolds - it’ll make sense at the end :)

Ahh yes, January.

The time we set lofty goals for the year subtly modified to disguise the fact that they’re the same goals we set last year and duly forgot about in February.

I’m not judging - I’m as addicted to the clean, sweet promise of a New Year notebook as the next Target-shopping millennial.

But the interesting thing about goals is that simply setting them doesn’t do anything. You also need to set up a system to support reaching them. Otherwise, it’s like looking up a sheer cliff face and thinking you’ll reach the top by sprinting toward it at full speed over and over again. You won’t reach the top by running fast, just like you can’t turn a dream into reality by the sheer force of how much you want it.

The ability to reach your dreams is determined not by how much you want something but by how well you set up your life to support the reaching of it. But how many of us stop after choosing the dream, leaving the rest up to hope?

Not us! Not anymore, friends!

There are three stages to changing your life, and the last is the most important and commonly forgotten step:

1. Dreaming BIG

2. Breaking the dream down into smaller, more achievable goals

3. Creating a scaffold around the goals to ensure your daily life supports the reaching of them

New Year’s resolutions usually stop short at the dreaming big stage, examples:

“I will get healthy!”

“I will release an album!”

“I will quit my job and become a professional musician!”

Some people go as far as to break the dream into smaller goals:

“I will get healthy by joining a gym and cutting out bad food”

“I will release an album by writing more songs and saving money to record”

“I will quit my job and become a professional musician by saving some money and getting some gigs and students”

But most people neglect to take the next - and most essential - step of changing the systems in their lives and building a scaffold that will support them in reaching their goals over the long term. That helps keep the momentum going when the buzz of the New Year has worn off, and the January-fresh notebook has become a plant coaster.

On a building site, a scaffold supports the workers while they make changes to a building, just like your system will support you while you make the life changes needed to reach your goals and realize your dreams.

Breaking down these examples of dreams into goals and then scaffolds might look like this:

1. Dream

Be healthy

2. Goals

• Eat a healthy diet

• Exercise regularly

• Cut back on alcohol

3. Scaffold

• Clean all high-sugar foods out of the pantry and kitchen to reduce the temptation

• Make a list of healthy restaurants to try

• Google healthy versions of recipes you love to cook

• Discuss with your other household members and get them on board to support you

• Join a gym or download a walk/run or exercise app

• Buy some yummy no-alcohol beverage alternatives to keep at home instead of alcohol

• Ask your local bar to get in some no-alcohol options if they don’t have any already

What about a musical goal like “release an album”?

1. Dream

Release an album

2. Goals

• Finish 12 original songs

• Raise the money to record and release

• Build an audience for the music

3. Scaffold

• Create a daily writing schedule to finish the songs

• Join an online songwriter group for support and to stay motivated

• Make a budget spreadsheet to determine the total costs for recording, mixing, mastering, artwork, and pressing

• Create a savings plan to build the reserves needed to fund the album and/or create a Kickstarter to raise the money

• Develop a social media plan to grow your audience and prepare them for the upcoming release

Or quitting your day job to become a professional musician?

1. Dream

Quit my job and become a professional musician

2. Goals

• Save a safety net of income

• Find gigs and students

3. Scaffold

• Create a monthly budget for expenses

• Set up an automatic weekly payment to a savings account

• Create a profile for corporate and wedding gigs

• Scout local venues for potential residencies

• Create a profile online to find students

• Set up a Google listing for teaching

• Optimize SEO on your website for students seeking teachers

Summary: you should think of your scaffold as the daily and weekly systems you put in place to help you work towards your goals and realize your overall dream.

My primary goal this year is to write my first book, which was also my goal last year. The problem last year, I didn’t put anything in place to help me achieve the goal.

To be honest, last year's main problem was that I didn’t believe I could embark on such an undertaking. But this year, I’m getting over my insecurities AND putting a scaffold in place to support my pursuit of it.

The scaffold includes:

• A daily schedule with writing time blocked out

• A spreadsheet to track progress and keep my work organized

• Daily morning walks (because that’s the place I have my best ideas)

• Limiting alcohol and sugar so I sleep well, and my mind is clear and energized each day

It’s overwhelming to wake up each morning thinking, “today, I’m going to write a book!”. It’s much more manageable to wake up and say, “today, I’m going to go for a walk and then write for two hours.”

Your scaffold is essential in turning a formidable dream into the manageable daily steps you will take to reach it.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals you fall to the level of your systems“.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, said that, and I love it because it doesn’t matter how awesome, detailed, thoughtful, or even achievable your dreams are if the systems in your life aren’t set up to support you in reaching them.

So this year, I’m not just setting resolutions, I’m building scaffolds.

Whether you call it a scaffold, system, or plan, the best chance of reaching your New Year goals is to make sure you’ve taken that third step and built yours.

To make reaching this year’s dreams less about hope and more a logically created inevitability.

Need some help building your scaffold? Drop your dream or goals in the comments, and I’ll make some suggestions :)