How to Bridge the Gap Between What You Want and What You Need
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Ninjabyob, Habits, Writing, Work, Entrepreneurship

In late 2015, I had one thing on my mind.

I was a teacher’s assistant working under a burned out teacher who couldn’t stand me. The anxiety was so bad, I literally had hives. I hated my job and I desperately needed a way out of it.

I also needed the income, as terrible as it was. I couldn’t just quit. I had to find something else, first. So I started throwing everything I could think of at the wall, hoping something would stick.

I interviewed for new positions at the school district and got a job at a different school, which helped but wasn’t enough. I wanted something completely different.

Two things happened at the same time: I decided my best bet for making enough money to quit working all together was to write and sell another novel. And I decided to blog about it.

I had a little blog that earned a couple of hundred dollars a month. When my posts about writing my novel did well, I thought maybe if I started a blog just about writing then I’d make another couple of hundred and that would help.

I did that in February 2015. And that little blog became Ninja Writers — a six-figure business that is honestly the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

You Can’t Get What You Don’t Reach For

When I stared Ninja Writers, I didn’t know a lot about online business. Or being an entrepreneur.

If I had, I might not have even tried. It’s a lot of work. And a lot of it is done blind. I had no idea what I was doing, and that in the end that was good, I think.

Not because it wouldn’t have helped to have some clue — it would have.

But because I didn’t know enough to be scared. I didn’t worry about it. I just dived in and did the work.

I just reached.

And it turns out, if you don’t reach for a thing, you’ll never get it.

Humans have a habit of self-limitation. If we set expectations for ourselves, they become ceilings. Like the elephant who doesn’t need the chain around its ankle anymore, we bump up against that non-existing ceiling and just stay there.

Goals vs. Dreams

I think there’s a distinction between goals and dreams.

A goal is concrete. My goal was to quit my job. To do that, all I needed was the replace the income. I didn’t care where that money came from, as long as it was less miserable than how I was making money at the time.

As a result, I didn’t apply for jobs that earned a lot more than the one I had. I didn’t apply for jobs I didn’t think I could get.

A dream is more ethereal. My dream was to quit my job and be a writer.

What made a life-changing difference to me was when my goal (get out of my job) and my dream (quit my job and just be a writer) collided.

I didn’t do it on purpose, but I found the intersection. For me, it was teaching and writing.

What’s your intersection? The place where your goals and your dreams collide. There’s magic there.

Find the Gap Between Here and There

For me, that intersection was between teaching and writing.

I loved teaching. I hated working for the school district. It was such a bad fit that it literally made me sick.

I loved writing, but if I spent all my time and creativity doing it for other people, I didn’t have any left for writing I wanted to do.

When I started teaching other people what I knew about writing, suddenly things opened up. Teaching gave me the income to quit my job. Writing for Ninja Writers actually fed my creativity.

I ended up writing and selling two more books in the next few years. And becoming a successful blogger. And writing classes that really helped people.

My gap was between what I thought I had to do (teaching) and what I wanted to do (writing.)

What’s your gap? Look for the place where the intersection between your dreams and goals comes close, but doesn’t quite meet.

Bridge It

Once you understand your intersection and have identified your gap, you can figure out a bridge.

Forget about your expectations. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ll be successful. In fact, consider that success is just closing that gap a little bit.

If your feet are pointed in the right direction, every step builds that bridge, because it brings you closer.

It takes faith, of course, to take that step and trust that there will be something under you to catch your foot. What if you fail? What if you try and nothing happens? What if the first thing you try doesn’t bridge that gap? What if the tenth thing doesn’t?

The truth is that even failures bridge the gap.

Trying to manage your expectations limits you. Think big, act small. Those small actions, completed with consistency, are the building blocks to your bridge.