Back in the day the Talking Heads were one of my favourite bands and in particular the song “Road To Nowhere”. In the first verse, there’s a couple of lines which are:-
“We know what we want,
and the future is certain,
give us time to work it out”.
These particular lines have always resonated with me because the simple fact is, that most people don’t actually know what they want, and the future is not certain and even if they had oodles of time they wouldn’t work it out.
One of the first questions any business owner, entrepreneur, or anybody who wants an element of success should ask themselves is:-
Where do I want to get to?
It’s pretty much the first question I ask every time I start to work with someone. Yet it’s surprising that very few people have a precise answer to this simple yet really powerful question.
They will have vague notions of what they want, which is usually expressed in monetary terms, i.e. I want to have £XXXXX in my bank account or I just want a simple life. Or they will express it in terms of what they don’t want, i.e I don’t want to go and work for someone else again, or I don’t want to have to lay people off in my business. Neither of which is particularly useful when it comes to establishing where they want to get to.
Lewis Carroll is purported to have written “If you don’t know where you’re going any road will get you there”, while this is a great quote in itself it is not as powerful as the actual text from Alice in wonderland. The exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat goes as follows:-
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Like lots of people Alice just wants to get SOMEWHERE. Most people just want to get somewhere, anywhere but here, and that’s the problem. Not knowing where you want to get to specifically, leads to people taking a direction or route which is not necessarily the right direction for them and their business.
Why is direction important?
Or more specifically, having a direction. Where are you going? Until you can answer that question, you can’t say that any one route is better than another. Any road will get you to where you want to go.
Not having a direction, not having a goal, not knowing where you are going, it’s all the same. You go nowhere. You can never get “there,” you can never arrive anywhere, because you don’t really have a destination. Without direction, without a destination, without a goal, how do you pick a direction, choose a road, or plot a course to get “there”?
This is why motivation without direction is a problem, if you motivate someone going in the wrong direction they’ll just be going in the wrong direction faster and end up even further away from where they need to be.
Of course the answer to all of this lack of direction is goal setting. It’s so important when setting out to build a successful business or even life. Knowing what you want is a vital first step, setting goals gives you the information you need as to the direction to take.
So how do you take that first step?
The first step to goal setting is having absolute faith and belief in the process. If you don’t have the confidence in yourself and your abilities, then you might as well forget about your attempt to achieve your goals.
Before you set a goal, take a closer look at what you’re trying to achieve and ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this goal something you truly want?
- Is it important enough to pour hours of time and effort into it?
- If you’re not willing to put in the time, it may not be worth pursuing.
Setting strong goals and committing them to paper is the most effective way to achieve success. Goals will focus your time, energy on the outcomes that are the highest priority at a time. When you prioritize and concentrate your efforts, you avoid being stretched too thin and produce greater results. Goals will also allow you to set the direction you want to move to, you’ll no longer be on the road to nowhere, but on a road to a definite somewhere!
Want some clarity of where you’re going. Then why not schedule a meeting with me where we can go through the business growth accelerator. You’ll benefit from knowing exactly where you are with your business and get some pointers on how to build a better business to help you achieve your goals. Just hit the button below to find out more…
Twelve intensive half-day meetings.
