How To Find Clarity And Why It's Important
When it comes to finding success and becoming a high-performer, it often comes down to one thing: finding clarity. Not having clarity can prove to be a huge hindrance to your success. It's like going on a trip without a destination in mind. It may feel freeing and fun at first, but eventually, you'll be worn out from driving in circles and wasting your time.
Best-Selling Author Steven Maraboli once said, “A lack of clarity could put the brakes on any journey to success.”
I don't want you putting the brakes on your progress, so if you don't have clarity about who you are or where you're going in life, it's time to get clear on where you're headed before you push down on that accelerator.
What is clarity?
Finding clarity can easily be thought of as having a "knowing" about the direction you want to go in major life areas such as: work, relationships, health, finances, and more! Clarity can look different for everyone, but most successful people find themselves looking for clarity in who they are, how they interact with others, and what skills they need to make an impact.
When people find clarity in the main areas of their lives, it makes sense that they would start to make decisions that most often support who they want to be and what goals they want to achieve. When you operate with a sense of clarity, it acts as a road. It directs you, the driver, on the journey you are going to take.
For example, if you are clear that you want to double your revenue for the year, you know that there will be crucial habit changes you need to make both personally and in the way you do business. When you have the end-goal in mind, you can then work backwards planning the steps it will take to get there. What will you need to make per month to double your yearly income? What is it going to take to do that? What are the first five power steps that will get you to the first milestone?
Do you see how that works? Otherwise, you could get to the end of the year wishing you had made more money but never having taken the steps because you weren't clear on your numbers or your path to your goal.
How do you find clarity?
Honing in on developing clarity in your personal life may not come naturally. Like most personal journeys, there is a level of daily self-reflection that has to take place. It can be counterintuitive to our current culture, where constant busyness and keeping up with a certain "outward appearance" through social media is all too common. However, becoming a high-performance individual requires you to know yourself deeply, and that means you have to spend time in reflection.
I often encourage my clients to live lives that are proactive instead of reactive. That means they have a plan for their day, and they make time to reflect so that they can be proactive in their choices and actions. If you live as a slave to busyness and wearing a false persona to the outside world, you are putting yourself in "reactive mode" where you are constantly reacting to what's around you without any sense of control or purpose. This is no way to live.
Take a look at your life and decide if you're living in proactive or reactive mode.
Another way to gain clarity is to practice daily gratitude and focus on the positive around you. Oftentimes we brush positive moments under the rug and treat them as less important than the busyness of our lives, or the negative things that happen. Focusing on the positive requires intentionality -- this may need to be practiced. When you make a choice to give extra thought to why things are considered positive to you, you just might find clarity about what is important! Practicing gratitude is also a way to live in proactive mode -- you are deciding to view life from a lens and perspective that will better serve you and your people.
Simple as it sounds, taking care of your health and wellness is also a huge part of gaining clarity. Get adequate rest and eat well so you can focus on tasks and self-reflection. Eliminate stress and distractions so you can put your best into your job and your personal journey. If you’re exhausted, hungry and distracted, finding clarity is going to be that much more difficult. I work with my clients to make positive health changes and to gain more energy because it is a great way to increase clarity which creates a cycle of more success.
The final tip to clarity is to get into the habit of writing things down. Put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and chronicle your moments of clarity. When did you feel most alive or your best self? What made your list of positives for the day? How did your approach to the day change with a full night of sleep? At the very least, writing down your journey to clarity can often serve as your own personal scorecard and help you see what strides you have made and where there are still gaps in your life.
At the end of the day, you are the only one who can find your own clarity. What steps will you take to start on your clarity journey today?
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Clarity is a major topic I coach my high-performance clients around. We go DEEP into who they are and who they want to be and how to close that gap! To learn more about my coaching services, click here or sign up to get a free introductory workbook below!
