People who want to achieve great things in life are consistently looking for potential avenues to accomplish their desired results. This is the mindset of “If I do X, then I will likely get Y.” This is a necessary and good mindset. It is where a lot of opportunity is found in life. However, many people get stuck here and it is only part of the equation for investing yourself in solid opportunities. Going from “If I” to “Will I” is a fundamental part of successfully ceasing opportunity in life. This falls in line with my perspective of The Second Level of Human Achievement.

Gauging Feasibility of Your Implementation

Once you identify a potential opportunity in life within the realm of “If I do X, then I will likely get Y.”, the next thing you have to do is gauge how likely it is that you will actually do X consistently & effectively enough. This can be summed up in the mindset & questioning of “Will I?”

I would say that tons of people find out, the long & hard way, that they did not have a decent shot at success, due to their lack in being willing & able to implement properly. I certainly have at times.

Often though, I believe, with genuine consideration or lightweight testing, that this can be concluded upfront without having to having to pursue a dead-end.

The point here is that knowing whether you have the capability & will to actually execute to a consistent & effective enough degree, is extremely important. Knowing this gives you greater strategic options, if you find that it is uncertain or doubtful that you will actually execute according to your plan.

This measurement should take everything into account, including factors such as sustainable motivation, skill, creativity, confidence, fear, time, emotional well-being, social support, personal habits, etc. Whatever can meaningfully enable or disable a person in their life should be factored into this judgment. Being brutally honest here is the key, especially when analyzing yourself, so you may want to include the feedback of others who know you well. Really understand the necessary actions & expected conditions of implementing your plan and see how you truthfully measure up in consistently & effectively executing upon this.

Variable Game Plan

Every situation may be unique for what the best choice of action is, based on the determination of one’s implementation feasibility. If you are certain in your ability to implement well enough, then in most all circumstances, the move to make should be to simply charge forward in executing the plan for producing end results. However, if you have meaningful uncertainty or doubt in your ability to implement well enough, as prescribed by your plan, then you may want to consider some alternative strategic options at this point.

The range of options typically falls within a scale of Outright Quitting to Building Capability to Producing Results.

Sometimes, the right option will be to outright quit the opportunity. Even if the first level opportunity looks like a predictable success, the second level feasibility of your effective implementation may make the opportunity a losing game that is not worth it to you. I’ve personally done this a lot, and am better off for it.

Other times, you will want to further test the feasibility of your effective implementation. This often makes sense when you are uncertain in your capability to execute. You won’t want to bet the ranch within your testing, so engineering lightweight tests that isolate & demonstrate your capability to execute the same or similar actions within your plan is what is needed.

If you are certain that you probably won’t implement consistently & effectively enough, and the opportunity is still worthwhile to you, then you will probably need to go build the capability to implement where you presently lack it. This can potentially be accomplished by bringing on the help of another person who can perform the duty for you, or further developing the capability to implement within yourself.

Now, even if your implementation feasibility is lacking, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily don’t want to go execute the plan anyway. The risk/reward scenario may be favorable enough to pursue what potential you do have and see what becomes of it. And it may be smart to take the dual pronged approach of continuing to implement your plan as well as building your capability for more effective implementation. Diving in and engaging in real world production can be a powerful way to grow your implementation capability in a lot of scenarios. I often like taking this dual pronged approach of executing & growing at the same time, compared to sitting on the sidelines in development mode.

But, like I said, each scenario may be unique and certain strategic approaches may work better than others. I know that I’ve strategically utilized all of these approaches, and combinations thereof, with opportunities throughout my life.

Being accurately aware of your real world present capability to implement consistently & effectively enough, relative to your solid plan, is often further enabling than leaving this fundamental variable unknown and unmanaged.

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Going from the mindset of “If I” to “Will I” and accurately gauging the feasibility of your implementation with your opportunity’s plan is important. A lot of people leave this unknown & unmanaged and go on for prolonged periods of time without gaining any ground in their ability to produce desired results. Strategically deciding how to invest yourself into potential opportunities can often be meaningfully optimized if you incorporate this measurement & mindset into your pursuit of achievement in life.