I have a mental picture of my dream life in ten years. This picture is abstract, ambitious, and dependent on a tremendous amount of luck.

The odds don’t look too good.

One way to deal with an improbable dream is not have one (how not exciting!). With a healthy level of room for failure, dreaming ambitious dreams can be a catalyst for happiness. No amount of Camus philosophies or extrinsic motivators can compete with the optimal experience resultant of pursuing a dream.

An alternative option is to use a systemic approach to understand and, at least, try to achieve an improbable dream.

Often, there is no clear path forward to achieve an improbable dream. In fact, many goals need to be accomplished that may seem unrelated, interdependent, or conflicting.

From this perspective, the problem has some commonality with organizational management. In mismanaged organizations, different functions compete for limited resources and may try to achieve their disparate goals at the expense of other functional groups.

Personal ambitions compete for resources in the same way. Without a clear vision and a way to align, different goals compete for attention, time, and other resources.

On the other hand, at well-managed organizations, vision, mission, and strategy is well articulated and translated to a set of prioritized objectives. Each function, group, and individual contributor set their respective objectives and key results (OKR) that aggregates to the organizational objectives.

You can treat grandiose dreams using the same approach as productive organizations.

First, you need to be able to envision and articulate your dream. Start by defining a vision and a personal mission statement.

The vision statement describes the long-term impact of your life and integrates your core values and belief system. A personal mission statement articulates how your existence can help achieve your vision and serves as a powerful decision making tool.

Once you have articulated your vision and mission, you need to identify a solid strategy, a tactical plan, and a way to connect and align your goals.

Start by breaking down your personal mission statement until you find all the atomic components you need to achieve. Set an objective per component discovered. Analyze the objectives and identify dependencies and conflicts. Reorder and prioritize until you have a roadmap for your life. Pick the top three most foundational objectives. For each objective, establish a key metric that’s measurable, specific, and time-bound. Allocate all your resources to your top three objectives by building habits focused on your key results. Check in on your key results at a meaningful cadence. Adjust your roadmap as you learn more. However, do not relent until you have accomplished your top three priorities.

When you get overwhelmed by the persistent mental reminders on components you are not addressing, take a peek at your roadmap and remember that you have a strategy and a plan in place.

I especially like this technique because it focuses your efforts on what matters today while guaranteeing incremental gains. Even if your long term plan doesn’t pan out, you have achieved meaningful results along the way.

How do you achieve your improbable dream?