Gaining Clarity - Revisited

Click below to listen to the podcast episode on Gaining Clarity!

Summary   

Sometimes small things are not really small at all; the mystery of word clarity is one of them. Clarity is the quality of being certain and definite. This seems simple, however, when it comes to our practical lives, achieving it is not as easy as it seems. Clarity is one of the prevalent characteristics of highly accomplished individuals. It refers to being clear about what matters the most and holds your happiness, passion, and joy in it. Achieving clarity means knowing the meaning, intensity, and level of what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what you really want to do.

After much research, I have summed up two strategies to unlock this mystery.

1. First, wander through your personal and professional life and enlist what are the most crucial areas of your life you want to master. Evaluate and rate your performance in these areas from 1 to 10 regularly.
2. Design a clear path with the end in mind. The approach to design the plan matters the most. Start at the end and plan backward. 

Do not borrow them from others, this is your life with your goals in mind. We are all different so, give this a try for yourself and see if it works for you. And remember the choice is always yours to focus forward.  

Full Transcript

I want to talk today about the mystery in the word clarity.  The definition of clarity is the quality of being certain of or definite.  The quality of transparency or purity.  Merriam – Webster children’s dictionary defines clarity as “A clear quality or state”. I like that one as it is pretty straight forward.  Ok, so if it is so straight forward then how come it is so hard to really truly define in our own lives? It has been proven through science that the highest accomplishing people have extremely great clarity and spend a great amount of time reflecting on the things that give them clarity.  When I say highest accomplishing, this could be anyone that sets a goal and accomplishes it time after time and is always chasing the next big dream…that should be you!  This could be the CEO of a fortune 100 company, an Olympic athlete, a fantastic mom, the most amazing chocolate chip cookie maker, or anyone out there that has the passion to be great at whatever they choose to do.

We have heard so much in the past few years about needing clarity or knowing your big Why, was something people used to say.  But what is clarity really and how do you go about defining your own personal clarity and do you have different levels of clarity, or do you have clarity in one thing like your business life and then different clarity in your personal life?   And why do I want clarity…it seems so confusing, which makes me feel like I have less clarity and I have no idea where I am going or what I am doing.

Does this feel familiar? I understand…I spent a long time wondering why I could not come up with my “big why” when it seemed like I would go to workshops and seminars and everyone else seemed to know their big why, so I would write down something that seemed appropriate at the moment, but was it enough to get me excited about every day?  Not really, I just chose something that I thought was expected, like make enough to be debt free, or send your kids to college.  Those are great goals, but I don’t know that they were going to inspire me to jump off mountains or scale buildings. 

Now that I look back, I was certain at the time that I was the only lost soul, but I have a feeling that I was not alone in that room of who the heck am I and what purpose am I supposed to serve.  Have you ever been to a hypnotist and when you leave the show it seems that all the people that you are with are buzzing around and  claim to have been hypnotized, yet you just sat there with your eyes closed wondering what was supposed to happen, and trying to remember if you locked the front door when you left the house or if the dog was out.  Seriously, that is how this whole clarity thing felt to me.  Like I was the only one on the outside that was not part of the secret club, or who didn’t know the secret handshake.

Then through a lot of reading, coaching and personal development training what I finally came to accept is  that you don’t wake up one day and clarity has surrounded you, and you now know exactly what the plan is and all the steps to get there. I really thought that I just didn’t get it, that there was not enough meaning in what I was doing everyday to warrant real clarity, or that maybe I didn’t have enough passion in what I was doing.  Come to find out I wasn’t asking the right questions or taking the right steps to figure it out.

I will share with you that Clarity is about mindset and being tuned in to who you want to be and what you want your life to look like, as well as how you want to show up every day. 

I am going to go over 2 strategies today to help you define your clarity.  This will be the first step to moving you forward to gaining real insight into what is going to make you happy, content, energetic and joyful in your life as well as adding to the lives of those around you.

Number one - Here is the key…you get to decide what areas of your life are critical for you to be able to measure.  What do I mean by that?  You have probably read something or heard someone tell you to evaluate certain parts of your life such as your family relationships on a scale of 1-10.  1 being that those relationships suck and 10 being that they are rock solid, and you spend caring quality time together.  You are the glue that holds your family together…you nailed it.   Ok, rewind…what if family relationships were not something that was a big deal to you, and so you are evaluating a piece of a puzzle that doesn’t affect you emotionally one way or the other?  We can’t all go off of a predetermined list of things that should matter to us…they have to matter on a deep level and we are all different and have different dreams, passions and desires for our lives. 

You need to decide what the categories are that make up your world and are important to you in the amount of energy that you put forth or the quality of work you put out.  No one can decide what you should be gaging but you. So, take out your journal, or a napkin, the power bill…anything that you can write on and jot down the first 6 things that come to your mind that you would like to be able to hold yourself accountable to.  For example, some of mine that I measure at the end of everyday are:

• On a scale of 1-10 did I work on the things that will move my business forward towards the big goals.  In other words, did I focus on the 20% big rocks or let myself get distracted with stuff or Facebook.
• Did I help people today by guiding them in a way that was helpful?
• Did I purposefully refresh my energy throughout the day…or did I just push all day with no mental or physical break?
• Did I express to my family how important and loved they are?  1 means I was in my own world and they were there like the furniture and 10 means that I was present in conversations and took the time to care, listen and give feedback to the things that were important in their lives.

So, you get it…now it’s your turn.    As you are thinking of your categories you might let yourself mentally wander to self-behaviors, how you want your social interactions at home, work or life in general to look.  What about your specific skill sets that you need to accomplish your goals, or finally maybe the way you give back or serve people or organizations is important to you.  Again, these are just wide subjects to consider, don’t let me tell you what your categories for evaluation should be.   Jot down at least 6 areas that are critical for you to be amazing at.  Areas of your life that you know would change your outlook if you were approaching a 10, even if today you are a 1.  

Number 2 – Design a clear path with the end in mind.  I was reading a really great article that made some great points about how difficult it is to gain clarity on what you want if you are just living day to day or month to month…some people live moment to moment and are truly dodging whatever comes their way without any thought or purpose.  Looking way out to the end and seeing the life that you want to have can give you a much clearer path and plan to getting there.  For example if I know that my goal is to take a vacation to a tropical island when I save enough money vs I see myself having the vacation in 18 months on the island of St Thomas at the Ritz Carlton, which do you think is easier to plan for.  I can now set the date, book the hotel, figure how much money I need to save and divide that into monthly amounts etc., etc.  Now that is a very short-term small goal.  What if you did the same thing with say your business or your retirement.  It is so much easier to work backwards.  Give it a try…do the simple exercise of writing down something that you know that you want to accomplish months or years from now, visualize what that will be like in detail and start planning how and what you need to do to make it happen.  That my friend is true clarity that will give you the steps to succeed.  

I hope this has given you some insight into your own journey towards clarity.  If this proved helpful, please like or share or comment below.  

Remember as you go through your day the choice is always yours to Focus Forward.

If you are ready to get ahold of your Clarity, schedule your FREE one on one session with Leigh here!