Do You Have What it Takes to Achieve you²?

A quantum leap goal will make you stretch. It will require new behaviors, confront you with different risks, and force you out of your comfort zone. It also might raise a few eyebrows.

Does that spook you?

• You’ll look at the constraints and limitations facing you and feel like you’re going out on a limb.
• You won’t have all the ways and means figured out.
• Other people may question your ambitions.

That could make you too uneasy to go for it. But don’t give in to your doubts! Just rev up your resourcefulness.

Dr. Brad Smart, Topgrading expert and bestselling author of Foolproof Hiring, considers resourcefulness to be the single most important personal competency. He calls it the “ubercompetency.” Brad says, “Resourceful people don’t accept setbacks without passionately trying to figure out how to get over, through, or around barriers to success.”

Here’s the good news: Big goals and major constraints automatically trigger resourcefulness. They force you to think creatively and adjust to new requirements. You need a “MacGyver mindset,” like the TV star who has a knack for inventive problem-solving:

• Remain optimistic, curious, and solution-focused.
• Be self-reliant and show initiative.
• Improvise. Make clever use of whatever items or skills are at hand.
• Consider unconventional solutions and workarounds
• Stay alert for help from unexpected sources
• Reframe the problem—don’t be blinded by prevailing assumptions.
• Exploit setbacks and failure! Learn from them and persevere.

As Ernest Hemingway said in The Old Man and the Sea, “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

Ironically, studies show that having a wealth of time, money, and other assets actually becomes a hazard. It diminishes your creativity and sense of urgency.

You have what you need!

There’s a great reservoir of resourcefulness hidden deep inside of you. It’s one of the mighty Unseen Forces that I speak of in the you² handbook, and it’s ready to serve you.