Secret Weapon - Clarity
Cognitive Clarity is the Secret Weapon in defining what you want and why
Why – The proverbial question of why indeed plagues me when answer what I want from a situation, a goal or life in general. All of us can develop plans on getting clear but answering the question of what I want and why I want it requires clarity. Do you have it is the first question. Setting your intention on any topic requires getting quiet and understanding your destination.
The speed in which people operate today if often fraught with the lack of clarity. Becoming clear on intention combined with action makes a significant difference. Understanding is linked with clarity; it primes you for action – when you have it you understand it clearly and people have a better chance of understand you and your intentions. Consider what it feels like when you are unclear in your thinking, you feel confused and often send mixed signals to others around you and yourself. That level of confusion is embedded in your current mental models you have constructed in your life to date.
Clarity relates directly to your thought processes. If your thoughts are unclear—if you don’t understand something or you can’t express yourself clearly because your thinking is vague—then the world reflects that back in your day to day.
Do you have clarity in what you want and what you don’t want to happen? Write the playbook and get crystal-clear on where you need to be by understand the opportunity from different perspectives. You can then navigate the best path forward. Do try and understand the underpinnings to your growth, goals and aspiration. We are going to break this down into a two step process the Foundation starting point to the One Thing and Activation of your efforts within the next hour.
The Foundation
Begin at the beginning – understanding where you are is the most important part in shaping the path forward to your goals and aspirations. What inspires you, motivates you, what do you want to do today and in the future. It is often difficult to answer straight-on questions as you are looking for the perfect answer. This is an opportunity to start shaping the goal and opportunities by tapping into your sub-conscious and rapidly brainstorming words and headlines.
Buckle-up and grab a pencil and a pad of paper – you will need 30 minutes to start the process here.
On a new page in your journal, or just on a blank piece of paper, draw a big circle.
Fill the whole page.
Inside the circle, write everything that you love to do, aspire to do, generally enjoy and want to have in your life. Fill that circle up - keep writing and writing. Also note this can be used for specific projects as well as finding your path forward.
This is a great task to employ your creative mindset and get in the flow. The exercise has two benefits; it gets you to think about your life but also remind you what you are grateful for in your life already, and what is important to you.
Now – grab some tea, coffee and water think about what you wrote for several minutes. I would suggest putting it away for a day or two and come back to it.
Now circle the ones that are important to you. When you do this the first time do it with a red pen. Then go back and highlight those things that you should pay attention to – anything standout? These represent opportunities related to your objective, your aspirations or goals.
As you evolve this practice, the results become less about the aspirations in your life and more about where your focus is in your life. What you focus on, you get more of.
So, if you’ve identified a big-ass goal, or if you want to get clearer on how to move towards what you want — perhaps it’s time to deploy the One Thing.
The One Thing fundamentally is a concept to gain the clarity needed to shape the path forward. What is the one-thing that will get me closer to achieving your goal? Look at your broader list of opportunity areas – ask yourself what is mission critical and what is not? What do I not really need to do right now?
What you focus on, you get more of!!! Take a piece of paper or a new page in your journal and divide it into 5 rows with 4 columns. Personal and Work as headers and below each want/ don’t want.
List the 5 rows into … 5 Years/ 4 Months/ 3 weeks/ 2 Days/ 1 Hour. Then under each of the headings Work and Personal, place your goals for those time-frames. Now let’s get started.
Write as many as you can, whatever you’re currently working on and what you’d like to be working on.
This will help you get the big picture of where you are and where you’re heading — or where you’d like to be heading. It might show you a new goal that you hadn’t really given weight to before.
Then — pick 1 from each row to really focus on.
For your 5 year and 4-month goals, you could create separate collections in your bullet journal to track these and work on them. If you don’t — maybe, ask yourself if that’s really something you’re serious about moving towards or you just feel duty bound to list it.
As for the 1 hour and 2-day goals — ask yourself if they are moving you towards your bigger goals, if they’re a good use of your time (scrap them if not), and if so — just do them!
This task ought to help you get an overview of what your priorities are. It might even give you some kind of reality check or wake-up call that there is some kind of disconnect between your goals and where you want to be, and what you’re doing at the moment — which might indicate that your priorities are a bit off and you need to refocus.
The 3 week / 2 days / 1-hour time-frames can then help you course correct accordingly.
The ultimate value in this task lies in not revisiting it. Stay focused on those things that you circled and prioritized, and don’t be tempted to come back until you’ve completed them. By taking the time to reflect on your Circle of Aspirations you can obtain a level of objectivity in your goal setting or project setting process. The 5-4-3-2-1 activates those key priorities and elements to take immediate action from long-term down to the next hour.
Get busy living or get busy dying.