Achieve the impossible

I’ve just read Achieve the Impossible: How to overcome challenges and gain success in life, work and sport by Prof Greg Whyte. Given my recent blog posts on goal setting and goal planning, I thought a mini book review would fit right in.
I say read – I actually went multi-format for this book – a technique I’ll blog about separately. I added this to my audible playlist as I have kind of just committed to a 100km endurance run (well walk for me) and wanted some tips on planning.
The book suggests the techniques help to overcome challenges and gain success in life, work and sport. All the examples are sports related. This is hardly surprising since the Prof is the man behind all the iconic Comic Relief and Sports Relief challenges. Most of the techniques presented will apply to many situations though some, like the macro, meso, micro approach to planning, would require some lateral thinking.

Frustrations

Chapter 3 introduced the wheel of success. Visual tools are often hard to picture so I was somewhat disappointed that the audiobook did not have a pdf to accompany it. Never one to be defeated I went to the authors website but sadly most of the links on there don’t work. A trip to the local library soon got me a hard copy which was a handy aid to writing my crib notes.

Key Takeaways

The wheel of success is a handy tool for considering the elements of a challenge (the determinants of success) and plotting your current position. Though a wheel is a hard thing to draw so I might modify it to a line graph.
Short term goals and personal contracts are good learning points, but they are techniques I’m already familiar with.
The importance of multiple motivators. Many goals start with a single big driver but during dark times that might not be enough to keep you on track. Having multiple motivators increases the chances of sticking to the challenge on your way to achieving success.
The biggest takeaway for me though was that you can’t do anything really significant on your own. Behind David Walliams swimming the Thames, Davina McCall’s 500-mile ultra-triathlon and John Bishops week of hell were not just Prog Greg Whyte but a small army of specialists. Amazing things are possible with the right motivation and the right team.

Read this book if

You have just signed up for a big sporting challenge and want to find the techniques an expert would use to deliver success.

 

 

book summary of achieve the impossible
Proof that Bullet journal notes don’t have to be pretty works of art

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