To “up the ante” on big goals you’ve set yourself, what small gesture could you make that involves attempting more than you usually, comfortably attempt? For example, maybe you can head up that fund drive for your church or community group, even though you’ve never done anything like that before. A mysterious and wonderful thing happens when you engage in uncharted territory — sometimes you succeed! Even if you don’t, you learn lessons along the way and add to the well of self-confidence you’ve been building.

I read about a mountain climber who said that as a strategic maneuver, he would scale the wall of a cliff where he knew he could not retreat. His only option was making it to the top, succeeding all the way (and then presumably, finding a reliable way down on the other side).

I’m not asking you to scale cliffs — far from it. Here are some suggestions, however, for upping the ante and going for more than your initial goal:

1. If your goal is more income — Ask for a raise, even if it’s months before the time when raises are usually given.
2. If your goal is to be a leader — Speak up at a meeting where you’ve never before spoken up.
3. If your goal is to act more boldly — Wear something that is normally a little wild or extravagant for you.
4. If your goal is to manage a winning team — Throw down a challenge to the members of your team or your staff at the next meeting.

The Incremental Approach

You will be wise to maintain a balance in pursuit of your goals, relative simplicity, and an incremental approach even though results don’t always show up that neatly. You can apply an incremental approach of sorts even when vastly upgrading your current goals.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in its four decades of existence, largely took an incremental approach to its projects. From early weather balloons to the Mercury and Apollo Projects; from landing on the moon and launching the first shuttle to building a space station; from putting the Hubble telescope into orbit and and then fixing it; to probes of Mars and Jupiter and points far beyond; the agency’s long stream of successes, albeit with some major setbacks along the way, have been achieved via an incremental approach.

Rupert Steps Up

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has turned his Fox Network from going-nowhere network into a competitive player in the television industry, had the humblest of origins. He started out as a broadcaster for a local station in Australia, and eventually got into management, then ownership, and from there, ownership of multiple stations. He then branched into print media, including magazines, newspapers, and even publishing.

Heading a growing conglomerate, he acquired businesses in the United Kingdom and the United States, opened new territories in Southeast Asia, was a pioneer in employing new variations in satellite broadcasting, and even purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers so that he could exploit their popularity in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Murdoch’s approach was to solidify his base every step of the way before venturing out and acquiring more.

As he developed the management know—how and assembled highly effective teams, his progress and growth seemed extraordinary to onlookers. Yet, all along, his incremental approach to building his worldwide media empire has been readily observable.

Step This Way

How could an incremental approach work for you? Suppose you’re a nurse. In time, you become a crackerjack nurse. Then, perhaps, you become a trainer of other nurses. Then, you spend some time as a manager of nurses. One day, soon enough, you start your own nursing agency. You send in teams of nurses to health care facilities for a day or for several months, depending on the needs of the clients, all at a reasonable rate. Perhaps you then expand your operations beyond local boundaries, to county-wide or regional clientele.

One day, you wake up and realize that you have built an empire that spans several states. This isn’t something you need or want to do, it’s just an idea.

For Thine is the Glory

Suppose you’re an active member of your church and have noticed that a number of paying members of the congregation have been slipping in recent years. You volunteer to be on a committee to revitalize operations. You devise a welcome wagon type of approach to build church membership. You send packets and/or greet new people in your community, making them aware of your church and all it has to offer. You recruit some of the current congregation members to handle this function.

With that squared away, you also begin an initiative among the entire congregation, using the church’s bi-monthly newsletter to invite them to bring friends and relatives to the Sunday service. This proves to be fairly effective, so you issue a regular message in each issue.

When you appear on a local community show, including the cable TV and public broadcasting station, discussing the affairs and activities of your church. One step at a time, in the course of perhaps a year, you have begun to restore the strength and vitality of the church.

You build on your successes, recruit others to handle specific functions, and once those individuals or teams are in place, you turn your attention to other membership building activities. In essence, you take a wholly incremental approach to reaching your goal, and it works just fine.

Approaching Your Goals Sequentially

A sequential approach is somewhat like an incremental approach with a major difference. You have to proceed from A to B and from B to C and from C to D, each step has to be taken in chronological order, either because of built-in protocol or actual necessity.

In many industries, to obtain certification or a license, you have to pass a sequence of exams or complete a series of steps, such as in the accounting and real estate professions.

One Path to Certification

In 1981, I obtained the CMC (Certified Management Consultant) designation. To qualify, I had to be in the consulting profession for five consecutive years full-time, including one year as a project manager.

Then, I had to request an application and pay an application fee; give a complete written description of my educational background, consulting experience, and professional activities; prepare five consulting engagement summaries, including one in detail; complete a test; have a one—hour interview with three members of the Institute of Management Consultants and be approved for membership by two of them; and upon acceptance, submit an initial membership fee and, henceforth, an annual membership fee.

To achieve my goal of becoming a Certified Management Consultant, I had to complete all the requirements in sequence, as does every other candidate.

From Here to There

In your own life, when it comes to raising the stakes, i.e., making your goals even more challenging, you may have to take a sequential approach because that’s the way the system is designed, or because it’s simply the most logical way to proceed.

If you want to be a full professor, you probably start off as a graduate teaching assistant, then perhaps move on to instructor, then assistant professor, then associate professor, and finally, full professor. From there, you may become associate chair or chair of your department, and then someday, during your days of grace, emeritus professor or even emeritus dean.

If your ambition is to run for higher office, you don’t have to start at the local level, but that’s the way many people have proceeded. They moved up through the ranks, paid their dues along the way, secured a political base, and then moved to the next level.

If you want to get an amendment passed in the United States, there is a specific process you need to follow, including getting ratification in three-quarters of the fifty states. If you seek to become a general in the Army and you’re currently a private, on the way to being all that you can be, the Army has a sequence for you.

Follow My Lead

In those instances in which you’ve raised your sights and dramatically increased your goal level, and there’s an established sequence to the process, your immediate activities are clear:

• Learn everything you can about the sequence. What are all the steps along the way? What are the positions, titles, ranks, and tests you have to take, the skills you have to demonstrate, and so forth.
• Talk to people who have moved up through the ranks. What better way do you have to proceed along your path as efficiently as you can than speak to people who have already blazed this trail? Speak to as many people as you can.
• Determine reasonable time lines for every step along your path. What are the norms, as well as the fastest and slowest times by which others have completed this process? Have people been able to leapfrog, and, if so, how and why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of proceeding through various steps faster or slower than the norm?

A World of Winners

The world is full of people who essentially followed a sequential approach on their way to achieving fabulous goals. Here is a brief roster of individuals who achieved one notable goal and then built upon that achievement to reach something even loftier:

• Michael E. Porter, Ph.D., wrote the highly acclaimed text, Competitive Advantage, which detailed how corporations and organizations could identify their strategic assets and use them to establish a market niche. Years later, Porter wrote The Competitive Advantage of Nations, which provided a blueprint for government to have more viable economies.
• Steven Covey, Ph.D., conducted seminars for corporate leaders and eventually wrote the perennial best-seller, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.

Since then, Covey has established a speaking, seminar, and publishing empire which employs hundreds of people and earns millions of dollars annually. Steven Covey has his own publishing house, has created and spun off his own literary agency, and has developed proprietary products such as calendars, newsletters, software products, guide books, and the like. He has also written several more best-selling books and produced video programs and six audio tapes that are distributed worldwide. His influence now spans the far reaches of the globe, and The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People is now used in classrooms.

Step One, Step Two

Ray Kroc, who bought out the McDonald brothers hamburger stand and then proceeded to open one franchise after another, is a highly visible example of a successful person who followed a sequential path. The same can be said of Dave Thomas of Wendy’s and Tom Monaghan of Domino’s Pizza.

In fact, the business of establishing a successful franchise lends itself to the sequential approach. If you’re interested in exploring how you can become a franchise owner, and then perhaps someday a multiple owner, get in touch with: International Franchise Association 1350 New York Avenue, N.W. Suite 900 Washington DC 20005 202-628-8000

In the arts, the process works much the same way:

• Jodie Foster was first a childhood actor, then an accomplished actor, then a winner of Academy Awards, then a director, and then a director/producer.
• Others establishing careers as actors first and then directors and/or producers include Woody Allen, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, and Robert Redford. Not bad company, eh?
• Penny Marshall and Rob Reiner, once husband and wife, are successful television sitcom actors who achieved superstar status as major motion picture directors, much like Ron Howard.
• In his mid twenties, Steven Spielberg directed the film, Sugarland Express, starring Goldie Hawn. It received critical acclaim although few people saw it.

A year later he directed Jaws, and two years later, the Indiana Jones trilogy. You already know about his stunning achievements, so I don’t need to delve further into them.

Everybody starts somewhere, and the path to fame and fortune among directors is largely taken from one film to the next.

What will your path be for reaching your goals?