If I asked you that while you were driving your car on a road trip, it’s an easy question to answer. In business and life though, we often travel aimlessly and then wonder why we never get anywhere.
Sure, from time to time, it’s enjoyable to just drive your car and enjoy the journey, driving aimlessly without a destination in mind, appreciating the landscape and taking in the moment. Would you want to suddenly come to your senses one day and realise that you’d been driving aimlessly for 20 years though?
So I ask you this - Do you know where you are trying to get to in life and in your business?
The first and most important part of this is knowing where you’re trying to get to (and why you’re going there). Once you understand where you’re trying to get to, you can start charting a course towards that destination. Without this destination in mind, any actions you take risk becoming random movements that move you away from your target.
Think about it. If you’re in Adelaide and decide that you don’t want to be in Adelaide anymore, you want to try out Perth instead, there’s only one direction you really need to travel - West.
Any other direction you randomly travel actually takes you further away from your desired destination. If you don’t think about it and just move North on a whim to get away from where you are, then East, then South, you end up with less time and further away from Perth than you started. Then, when you actually sit down to think about where you want to be and decide on Perth, it’s harder to get there than it was when you were in Adelaide.
The second part of the equation is checking in on your position and progress regularly.
Sticking with the roadtrip analogy, it would be crazy to think that you would drive for 3 weeks or 3 months without checking where you were in reference to your intended destination, right? Right?
You can’t drive a car while staring at a map the whole time, but it pays to check if you’re on track from time to time.
When was the last time you checked how you were progressing toward your life or business destination?
Without checking in on how we are progressing, we risk getting massively off course and lost. If left unchecked for too long, the end destination can seem impossible to get to, and we give up.
Note: When a storm rolls in that’s so strong (like a pandemic) that your car is buffeted and vision is reduced to nearly nothing, the smart thing to do is slow down to a crawl or pull over and wait for it to pass. Remember, if you pull over, you can take the time to check in with the roadmap though and maybe even rechart your course.
Knowing where you’re going and how you plan to get there makes it a lot easier when speedbumps and potholes appear along the way. With a destination in mind, you have a roadmap to refer back to and by regularly checking in with your progress, you’ll never get too far off course.
Have you got a destination and a roadmap in mind?
Thank you for taking the time to read and for investing in better thinking.
If you would like to discuss any of the concepts further you can do so by emailing think@upperlimit.club or by clicking here to book a call.
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Until then, Onward & upward, Jake