20d • General discussion
Great Leaders Don’t Do “Realistic”
Great Leaders Don’t Do “Realistic”
We’ve all been told it.
Set “realistic” targets.
Keep your goals “achievable.”
Be “SMART” about it.
And that, my friends, is the quickest route to an entirely forgettable life.
Beige… Vanilla…. “whatever” !
The “SMART” goal brigade mean well ‘bless ’em’. But when you follow that thinking, you end up hitting benchmarks so low that you could trip over them. Which means you’ll never stretch far enough to surprise yourself… or anyone else.
Meanwhile, “truly great” leaders and history-makers have been quietly ignoring this nonsense for centuries. They set massive, outrageous goals.
Goals that make people shudder!
And then (here’s the key) they break them down into clear, actionable, realistic steps.
Notice the difference: the goal is huge. The steps are realistic.
Big Goal, Small Steps = The Winning Formula
Let’s take a look at a few of these “unrealistic” goal-setters.
Sir Edmund Hillary – First man to summit Mount Everest in 1953.
If Hillary had set a “realistic” goal, he’d have stuck to climbing Ben Nevis on weekends and telling himself that was enough. Instead, he set his sights on the tallest mountain in the world, in an age before Gore-Tex, GPS, or Instagram bragging rights. The mountain was big. The risk was massive. The steps? Months of training, team selection, route planning, acclimatisation, and meticulous preparation.
2. Elon Musk – Love him or loathe him, this guy Is not aiming for the moon…. NO!... he’s aiming for Mars.
Not “build a slightly better car.” Not “get a few satellites up there.” Nope… colonise another planet! How? By breaking it down: reusable rockets, Starship prototypes, life-support testing. Crazy goal, reasonable steps.
3. Rosa Parks – One seat on one bus.
Her ultimate goal? Dismantle systemic segregation in the United States. That’s as “massive” as it gets. But she took one specific, achievable action by refusing to give up her seat. That single act triggered a chain reaction, proving that small, deliberate steps can topple enormous systems.
Why “Realistic Targets” Breed Mediocrity
Here’s the dirty secret nobody in the SMART goal seminars will tell you:
If you only aim for what’s realistic, you’ll only achieve what’s ordinary.
Think about it. You’ll never build the Great Wall of China if your target is to “put up a fence.” The “realistic” goal crowd tend to fail less, but they also achieve WAY less. They hit their targets, but their targets are tiny. Their ambitions fit neatly into a PowerPoint slide and usually look like they were stolen from a corporate HR manual. The great leaders of history? Their ambitions didn’t fit in anyone’s slide deck.
The Psychology of Going Big
When you set a massive goal, something fascinating happens in your brain. You can’t just reach into your current toolkit and get there. You have to grow. You have to think differently, find new resources, and develop new skills.
Massive goals force innovation. They push you out of your comfortable “this will do” zone and into territory where you’re driven to figure things out.
But here’s the trick:
You don’t wake up and say, “Right then, I’ll just pop up Everest before lunch.” You plan the climb, one camp at a time. You don’t try to colonise Mars tomorrow… you build the rocket first.
It’s the combination of huge vision and practical steps that changes the game.
Actionable Steps for Your Own “Unrealistic” Goal
If you want to play in the big leagues, here’s how to do it:
1. Pick a Goal That Scares You a Bit
If it doesn’t make your stomach churn, it’s too small.
2. Get Crystal-Clear on the End Picture
Write it down in detail. See it. Feel it. Make it vivid enough to pull you forward when things get tough.
3. Reverse Engineer It
Break it into stages. Then break those stages into smaller, achievable tasks.
4. Measure Progress, Not Perfection
You don’t need to be halfway up the mountain by Thursday. You just need to make the next camp.
5. Surround Yourself With People Who Believe
Not the “realistic” naysayers. You need the “it’s possible” crew.
A Final Word to the “SMART” Goal Setters
Yes, I know. SMART goals have their place. They’re neat. They’re tidy. They make for a nice worksheet in a training seminar. But history isn’t made by people who colour neatly within the lines. It’s made by the ones who grab a bigger canvas and say, “Let’s see what happens if…”
Because nobody builds statues of average people, or writes biographies about the person who set a realistic target… and hit it.
By David Hyner. www.davidhyner.com
For an amazing short video course on how to set and achieve your massive goals, follow this link;
To find out how to get the support and accountability you need to grow your speaking and coaching business, drop me a message and ask about the benefits of my peer mastermind group.
David Hyner
Professional Speaker | Author | Goal Setting Researcher
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Great Leaders Don’t Do “Realistic”
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