Never mistake motion for action.
-Ernest Hemingway
Thrive! 5 Weeks to Business Breakthrough kicked off Thursday, and the first class was a blast! We each defined a vision for our lives in one important area: business, personal, or ministry. In the coming weeks, we will walk through the steps necessary to make that vision a reality, but we must have a clear target in order to even begin discussing what’s required to hit it.
At no point was this clearer (or class participation higher) than when we passed out the Nerf guns to the class participants and asked them to close their eyes as Jeff drew an unseen target on the white board at the front of the room. Each participant fired away, but as expected, no one was close. After opening her eyes, one class member announced, “Gimme a minute. I’m gonna see if I can hit it.”
Nothing stirs the conquering spirit within us to rise to the occasion more than defining a target and moving towards it. The clearer we are about where we’re aiming, the more confidence we have about our ability to make realistic steps toward it, and the better we’re able to measure our efforts to do so. While this may seem like common sense, a quick study of our “normal” way of going about things reveals that, for the vast majority of us, we don’t apply this natural wisdom to our everyday efforts in life and business.
For me and most others I know, the daily grind develops its own inertia, where I become comfortable and even complacent in routine. I spend the majority of my time doing the things that “need to be done” without consistent review of why these things need to be done, or prioritizing them as to their effectiveness at actually achieving my stated goals. Instead, they are the tasks that must be accomplished to grease the wheels of the machine of my life or business, to keep it moving forward. Years of keeping the machine moving forward day after day, however, can take me to places I never intended to go. How many regret-filled monologues have I heard with the phrase, “Then one day I woke up and realized that...” fill in the blank. “I don’t love her anymore,” “this isn’t what I want to do with my life,” and “didn’t recognize myself anymore” are all ways I have heard people finish this sentence, communicating the pain of failing to maintain a vision. In order to avoid becoming one of these patrons in the bar of regret, I have to first consider if I am headed to a worthwhile destination and whether I am taking the best path to it, and then revisit this frequently as I make forward progress.
As this task is often so counter to what most people are used to thinking about, I’m often asked, “Where do I start?” To help you out, Click here to get the free Vision worksheets! to help you develop your vision. Also, Click here to see video from the THRIVE class.
Considering where I want to go is more of an introspective task than external, more individual than corporate at this stage, and it is a question only I can answer for myself out of the depths of my own dreams and passions. However, taking time to contemplate what I really want out of life and what I’m actually doing to get there is the surest way to avoid the pain of wasted time. As Ben Franklin said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.”
Once I have taken measure of what’s in my heart to accomplish and have clearly fixed my vision in my mind’s eye, these goals become stars I use to chart my course and check my progress, like a captain on a trans-continental voyage. Without them, I am sailing toward an unknown destination beneath a void of black sky. Even after we put considerable effort into developing our visions, however, often we continue as if we hadn’t, neglecting to daily pull out our sextants and measure our progress against them. After all, with so many daily tasks vying for our time and attention, evaluating the direction of our lives and businesses seems to be a luxury that only far less busy people can afford. It takes time and discipline to make sure that such important tasks are a part of our daily routines, or they merely get pushed out of the way in favor of what’s urgent.
Consider also that in wilderness survival training, survival experts will teach you to pick a fixed point a ways away... a ridge, tall tree, or rock outcropping, that you can use to check to make sure you are continuing to travel in the right direction. Otherwise, the minute direction changes you must make to traverse obstacles often add up to walking in circles interminably, or walking off in the wrong direction entirely.
I would suggest that the daily grind is important... it is where progress happens. It’s the next few steps in front of us, in which we must figure out a way through the brambles, over the logs, and up the cliffs of adversity. However, without choosing an objective reference for our direction, we risk doing all of this work in vain, and finding ourselves back where we started, or worse, even farther away from our goal. Only by setting a course and making room daily to take stock of our direction can we ensure that at the end of our lives, we look back on a journey that was truly worth taking.
Thanks from Josh @ 360 Business
