How to Develop Your Inner Compass
Date Posted: October 21st, 2009
In the last article I discussed how to deal with a certain obstacle that can pop up while you’re trying to change your life: fear of success. That article assumes that you know what you want and “where you want to go”, but that’s a big assumption. Many of us don’t know. Moreover, that statement, “know where you want to go”, doesn’t quite convey the right meaning. It’s not about getting to a specific destination. No one knows the future. The goal isn’t so much that you get to any one place, it’s that in this moment you feel good about the direction in which you are moving.
So really what you need is a compass. You need a way to tell if you’re moving in the right direction. Here’s one way to develop your own.
Step 1: Brainstorm Places You Might Want to Go I’m using places in the broadest sense possible. One place could be the parent of 3 children. Another could be travel the world. Another could be to grow your favorite club into a powerful organization. Another could be to have a very musical family.
Don’t be picky here. It’s brainstorming after all. Everything you can think of is worth writing down.
Step 2: Reread your list or your mind-map and note your reaction to each item When you read “Big family” do you feel good? Disgusted? Scared? What about being at the top of the career ladder? Excited? Anxious? Put an emoticon by each of them.
Step 3: Try to find a pattern Do you notice a lot of smiley faces by the family options? By the work options? Do you notice you have a lot of work and wealth options but they all have unhappy faces. What about your hobbies? Is there a giant smiley by music or dance or writing?
Group the items that can be grouped together. All the family in one. All the work in another. Each hobby in its own.
Step 4: Figure out what subsets to spend your time on If you had to cut one out of your life, or spend only a little time on it, how would you feel about it? If it’s highly important, is it something you’re making progress on right now?
Step 5: Use your compass When presented with something to spend your time on, figure out if it feels intuitively like a good thing to do. Visualize the list you evaluated in Step 4. Will this action get you closer to the things that are important to you? You don’t have to limit yourself to just tasks that get you closer to your goal, but you should be making some steps in those directions.
Step 6: If you think your compass is broken or out of date go back to Step 1 This is an iterative process. As you grow and learn, you may find that things that used to be important to you just aren’t any more. Or maybe you’ve found something that actually is Really important. Update your compass. You’ll be much happier for it!
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