The preceding article in this series – What and How Questions for Swiftly Achieving 100% Renewable Energy – showed how you can ask two simple questions to bring a group of decision-makers into consensus on wanting to swiftly achieve 100% renewable energy.
What might a group of decision-makers wanting to swiftly achieve 100% renewable energy look like?
A group of decision-makers wanting to swiftly achieve 100% renewable energy might look like a group of decision-makers committing to achieving a goal of 100% renewable energy.
What might motivate decision-makers to commit to achieving a goal of 100% renewable energy?
First, it might be said that people commit to achieving a goal because they want to experience feelings of courage and determination when they make the commitment to achieve the goal.
The bigger and more audacious the goal, the more inspiring the goal needs to be to gain people’s commitments.
An inspiring goal is a commitment-ready goal because an inspiring goal calls forth the best of people’s energies and skills, and activates their feelings of courage and determination, when they make the commitment to achieve the goal.
If a goal is not inspiring, people will look around for other goals that are inspiring, that call forth the best of their energies and skills, and that activate their feelings of courage and determination when they make the commitment to achieve those other goals.
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy asked the American nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
Landing a man on the moon was an inspiring goal. It fired the imagination of the American nation with a vision of going all the way to achieve something extraordinary — something never before done in human history. The American nation committed to achieving the goal of landing a man on the moon because it touched the nation’s deep desire to be inspired, to be part of something bigger than themselves.
Here’s what John F. Kennedy said about the goal of landing a man on the moon:
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.“
The nation committed itself to the goal of landing a man on the moon because it was hard, because it called forth the best of the nation’s energies and skills and because it inspired the nation’s intention to win that challenge. The nation committed itself to landing a man on the moon because the nation was willing to accept that challenge to experience the feelings of courage and determination when the nation made that commitment.
100% renewable energy is an inspiring goal because it’s about going all the way to achieve something extraordinary, something never before done in human history. It’s an opportunity for people to be part of something bigger than themselves.
100% renewable energy is an inspiring goal because it’s about reversing global warming. It’s about leaving a healthy planet for the world’s children. The world’s children want you, ask you, dare you to commit to achieving 100% renewable energy.
Here’s what John F. Kennedy might have said today about a goal of 100% renewable energy:
We choose to achieve 100% renewable energy, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.
Hawaii Story: In Hawaii, achieving 100% renewable energy has fired decision-makers’ imagination with a vision of going all the way to achieve something extraordinary, to show people the world over that 100% renewable energy can be achieved and how it can be achieved. Decision-makers in Hawaii are committed to achieving 100% renewable energy because they feel inspired to be part of something transcendent, to be part of something that leaves a better planet for all the world’s children.
Decision-makers committing to achieve an inspiring goal might look like this:
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Second, it might be said that people commit to achieving a goal because they want to experience feelings of joy and enthusiasm while they are doing the work to achieve the goal.
The bigger and more audacious the goal, the more measurably achievable the goal needs to be to gain people’s commitment.
A measurably achievable goal is a commitment-ready goal because people who make the commitment can look forward to experiencing feelings of joy and enthusiasm while they are doing the work to achieve the goal.
If a goal is not measurably achievable, people are not going to commit to the goal, or – if they do commit – they’ll eventually quit because they don’t know where they stand in achieving the goal.
You already know this. Is there anything worse that spending endless amounts of your time, money and energy trying to achieve some indefinite goal without any sense that you actually are achieving it?
The most inspired, the most committed, the most self-disciplined of people eventually will burn out in frustration and despair if they don’t have a way of measuring their achievement of a goal.
Landing a man on the moon was a measurably achievable goal because its achievement was measurable through successful achievement of a series of technological advances called “missions” — the Mercury missions, the Gemini missions, the Apollo missions.
The American nation committed to the measurably achievable goal of landing a man on the moon because decision-makers understood that the success (or failure) of each mission measurably would tell them where the nation stood in achieving its goal of landing a man on the moon.
100% renewable energy is a measurably achievable goal because its achievement can be measured through successful adoption of a series of technological embodiments called “renewable energy options.” As renewable energy options are adopted, achievement of the goal is measured by renewable energy supplied as a percentage of total energy consumed.
100% renewable energy is a measurably achievable goal because its measurable achievability already has been demonstrated in places like Hawaii:
Hawaii Story: In Hawaii, decision-makers at the electric utility serving the island Kauai are on track to achieving 56% renewable energy by the end of 2019, and 66% renewable energy by the end of 2021. Decision-makers at Hawaii’s other electric utilities are committed to achieving a goal of 100% renewable energy because they understand that the successful adoption of each renewable energy option measurably tells them where they stand in their achievement of 100% renewable energy.
Decision-makers committing to achieve a measurably achievable goal might look like this:
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Once the American nation was in consensus on what it wanted to achieve – an inspiring and measurably achievable goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth — the “best of our energies and skills” aligned with how to achieve it, and its achievement became inevitable.
Once a group of decision-makers is in consensus on what they want – an inspiring and measurably achievable goal of 100% renewable energy – the best of their energies and skills align with how to achieve it, and its achievement becomes inevitable.
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Wondering how you might persuade a group of decision-makers to commit to an inspiring and measurably achievable goal of 100% renewable energy?
My new book, You Can Reverse Global Warming, shows you how.
For a limited time, you can download a complimentary advance copy of You Can Reverse Global Warming at www.erikkvam.com.
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Got questions about how you can swiftly achieve 100% renewable energy? About how you can reverse global warming? If you do, I hope that you will send me a message at extraordinary@erikkvam.com. I’m here to serve you.
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In the next article in this Reversing Global Warming series, I’ll show how you can persuade a group of decision-makers to commit to a goal of 100% renewable energy.
Thank you for reading this article. I’m grateful for your comments.
