Narrowing Your Focus
“Aim small, Miss small.”
- “The Patriot” (Movie)
Do you ever feel stressed out from being pulled in too many directions? Do you feel that you are unable to lean into your passion because of other things you see as priorities?
Then you might want to watch a movie entitled, “The Patriot”. Not the whole movie, just two seconds of dialogue Mel Gibson asks, “What did I tell you about shooting?” The response was, “Aim small, miss small.”
That was a huge moment for me. Not because I am a shooter, which I’m not, but as a philosophy.
“Aim small, miss small” is a shooter’s guide to focusing on the target. If you are at a shooting range and just aim at the entire target the shot error is large. But if you were to aim at a small point, say the bullseye, on the target your shot error is smaller. If you miss the bullseye by an inch, you still score points on the proximity of the miss. But if you just aim at the entire target and miss it by an inch you will miss the entire target.
In life when we try to make everyone happy, we end up disappointing most everyone.
In business if we try to take on too much, we end up going broke.
With our goals in life if we have too many, we don’t accomplish any of them.
But if we aim at pleasing the most important people in our circle then we will have a happy environment.
When we take small steps in the building of our company and take calculated risks, we will grow a strong business.
As we chase our goals, and we narrow our focus to the most pivotal goal, we will begin to collect win, upon win.
Winning It All
I learned the Aim Small, Miss Small Philosophy first hand when I got to USC in 2001.
I had been coaching for 16 years by then and had varying levels of success. I had been 0-fer two times and had won just one game three other times. On the other end of the spectrum, I just won National Championships in my last two jobs. Which showed I was starting to learn.
When I got to USC the head coach, Pete Carroll, was adamant about focusing on what you controlled.
Other teams would all be aiming to be the National Champions. At USC we just needed to “Own the Rose Bowl”.
Here is where the Aim Small, Miss Small concept came into play. In order to win a National Championship, you would have to win all, or nearly all of your games. Once you took a bad loss to an underdog or lost two games your chance of winning the National Championship went out the door.
But when we aimed at “Owning the Rose Bowl” we wouldn’t have to play as tight (nervous) as those who were aiming to be perfect so they could win the BIG GAME. We could even take a non-conference loss and still win the Pac-10 and get to play in the Rose Bowl game, which was the way things were run back then.
Now in order to be in the running to win the National Championship, at that time, you needed to win your conference championship. So, Owning the Rose Bowl meant we won the Pac-10 was in line with eventually winning the NC. It also covered playing against our cross-town rival ucla, whose home field was the Rose Bowl Stadium. What if we won all our non-conference games, including a win over ucla AND all of our conference games?
Well, we would win the Pac-10 AND be in the running for the National Championship.
This philosophy carried on to the NFL nicely. We just needed to win the Western Division of the NFC. With the “Win the West” mantra we didn’t need to focus on doing anything more than taking care of business with the 3 other teams in our conference.
Winning the West insured that we would be in the play-offs AND if you won your division, you got a first round home game, no matter what the record of the Wild Card team was that year. This played out for us in our first year at Seattle. We Won the West with a 7-9 record and played host to the 11-win New Orleans Saints who were the wild card in the NFC. The Saints had won the Super Bowl the previous year.
We did beat the Saints at home in the rain, when Marshawn Lynch made the earth move with his Beast-Quake run.
Rather than aiming at the big target and having the team that their “season was over” after one loss, our teams remained focused on the small target that would lead to the big game at the end of the season.
Your Life
Take the mindset of Aim small, Miss small into your life. Take care of the most important thing. It may be finishing your degree or paying bills. While you are WORKING on that goal, start planning where your next “shot” will be aimed.
Once you have accomplished your first goal you will change your aim to the next task. Because you had already done the planning while completing your first venture you will just need to put your plan into play.
For Example: You work at a doctor’s office right now. You want to own your own animal rescue center. While you are paying the bills with your pay at the doctor’s office you can volunteer at a local animal rescue center.
Because of your work at the rescue center, they offer you a full-time position at the center. You can now pivot from the doctor’s office to the rescue center. You now can begin to take aim on how you might secure the funding for another center.
Aiming small allowed you to take care of your Got To’s: paying your house payments, utilities and other essentials. But you were, on your off time, working on your next target.
Aim Small, Miss Small
When we follow the mindset of Narrowing Our Aim, we don’t need to change our passion. We don’t need to give up on our dreams, when we Aim Small we can focus on setting a firm foundation that we can work off of to accomplish our next goal (Miss Small).
When we start making 100 plans (Aim Big) without any foundation, we soon get out of balance and end up losing everything that we have worked for (Miss Big).
Never give up on your passion, no matter what stage of your life you are in. There is always time to accomplish the goals that will lead to you achieving your dreams.
All you need to do is “Aim Small, Miss Small”.
Have an amazing day!
