"The gap between ambition and capability is an invitation to grow, not a limitation." - Futurist Jim Carroll
Someone asked me how you can keep up when things are changing so fast; how you can grow when there is so much to master; how you can succeed when the challenges can seem so big.
You do it by refusing to be cowed by the scope of what's ahead of you!
Right now, everyone is faced with the same issue - we have a lot of ambition, but given that there is so much new 'stuff'to master, our capabilities are often lacking. That can seem like a setback, a barrier, a wall that we can't break through - because we focus on our limits, not our capabilities.
Shifting our focus from limitations to opportunity is the key to breaking through.
I went back and talked ot myself - that is, I fed this idea to Google Gemini to see how we can focus on growth, not limits. It came back to me with this: Your 25-Point Plan to Bridge the Ambition-Capability Gap. There's a great little inspirational PDF that might be useful! [ link ]
Step 1? Make speed your primary strategy - stop waiting, start doing!
Reject perfectionism - our chase for doing something without a mistake is often the very thing that holds us back.
There's more in the PDF - and here's your list right here:
- Embrace Speed as Your Primary Strategy: Stop waiting for a perfect plan. Start before you are ready, making velocity your core competitive advantage.
- Practice Imperfection: Reject the inertia of perfectionism. Launch quickly, learn from the results, and then iterate faster than the competition.
- Execute A 72-Hour Rule: For any new idea or learned lesson, commit to taking a tangible, measurable action toward its implementation within 72 hours.
- Do it Now: Treat the current moment as the only window of opportunity; eliminate any thought process that advocates for delay or postponement.
- Seek Motion Over Clarity: Understand that clarity is earned through action, not contemplation. The path becomes visible only by walking on it.
- Be Perpetually Ready: Structure your resources and focus to be constantly adaptable and prepared for the next unexpected shift, rather than merely optimized for the last one.
- Become A Perpetual Skills Architect: Accept that skills degrade in value. Identify your next high-value skill and commit to acquiring it, viewing yourself as constantly under construction.
- Build Yourself a 'Sapiential Circle': Actively build a network of diverse thinkers who challenge your assumptions and feed you new knowledge and trends.
- Prioritize Wisdom Gained from Action: Focus on learning by doing. The wisdom gained from action—even failed action—is the ultimate currency in a disrupted economy.
- Normalize the Admittance of Ignorance: Make it a habit to say, "What I don't know is..." This brave admission is the first step toward genuine knowledge discovery.
- Assume a Growth Mindset: Instead of fearing change, choose to see every disruption as an opportunity that is happening for you, not to you.
- Defy Nostalgia (Kill Your Sacred Cow): Ruthlessly question past successes and beliefs. Your biggest past win often holds the key to your future failure if you cling to it.
- Reinforce Optimism: Actively seek out and share positive, future-focused possibilities to counter the natural tyranny of pessimism within your environment.
- Be Defiant. Encourage yourself and your team to act decisively against outdated rules, processes, or traditions that inhibit speed and growth.
- Ignore Constraints: View limitations (time, budget, resources) not as roadblocks, but as the catalyst for ingenuity and inventive problem-solving.
- Ban the Committee Mindset: Avoid "infrastructure designed to race you to the bottom of opportunity." Make individual, decisive ownership of small innovations the cultural norm.
- Run the Opposite Way: Actively look for areas where the crowd is moving and identify the unique, contrarian path that could lead to disproportionate results.
- Be True To Yourself: Design processes, checks, and organizational accountability that enshrine your core values and ethical decency, ensuring they hold up under stress and rapid growth.
- Lead with Hope, Absorb Fear: Consciously take on the responsibility of internalizing organizational anxieties while externally projecting unwavering confidence and a clear path forward for your team.
- Continuously Challenge Your Beliefs: Schedule regular reviews (e.g., quarterly) to challenge the fundamental beliefs your current ambition rests upon, ensuring your strategy is based on reality, not wishful thinking.
- Leverage Tools to Achieve Super-Productivity: Identify and master any force-multiplying technology or process that dramatically augments your personal efficiency and allows you to deliver 10x the output of a standard workflow.
- Get Rid of Things That Slow You Down: Systematically identify and eliminate organizational drag, complexity, and bureaucratic layers that slow down innovation and decision-making.
- Focus on 'Why': Instead of just reacting to trends, develop the capability to decode the underlying shift (e.g., decentralization, personalization) and align your strategy with that foundational change.
- Plan Your Second Act Now: Proactively define the next major iteration of your career or business model, ensuring you are launching your next identity before your current one runs out of steam.
- Match Speed to Trends: Ensure your internal organizational structure and decision-making processes are agile enough to respond to the accelerating pace of external trends.
The only limits between your ambition and capabilities are the barriers you set for yourself!
Futurist Jim Carroll is always trying to move forward, not back!