Once you have discovered why you don’t know what you want and how to overcome your fears of failure and success, the next step is to get clarity on your purpose and take action! Clarity, for my purpose here, is simply a way of describing a clear vision or a focused idea. You know where you’re going. You may already have a lot of clarity on where you want to be, or you may just have a 
broad, general idea of what you want. Wherever you currently find yourself, a lack of clarity is often what keeps us from taking action steps. For example, I may say that I’m unhappy in my current work and wish I could do work that matters and have more freedom, but what does that actually look like for me? I’ve heard many people talk about how much they dislike their current work, but they never seem to focus on the kind of work they really want to do. An exercise that I try to do is to spend time thinking realistically about what I want my life to look like in 3 to 5 years from now. I think about big picture ideas like be a better dad and husband, have less debt, be a full-time writer/coach/speaker. Those are good starting points but it helps to get more specific with things like spend more time fishing with my son, go on weekly dates with my wife, pay off student loans and credit cards, publish 3 books, speak publicly once a month. Once you start getting specific and focused in your vision for the future, you can start to work backwards to set goals for next year, this year, next month, and next week. When you have a specific target, you can more easily see what information and activities fall in line with your vision and what doesn’t. Sorting through the books, emails, and blogs you read will help you gain even more focus as you hone in on where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. Spend some time today trying to envision what your typical weekday could look like in 3 years from now. What do you want your schedule to look like? How do you want to spend your time? How do you want others do view you? How do you want your finances to look? Where do you want to be living? After answering some of these questions, take at least one more action step, such as the ones below.
Actions you can take TODAY:
- Start a blog/website (sites like WordPress.com make this super easy and cheap)
- Talk to a friend/colleague about your business idea
- Set your alarm 30 minutes earlier for tomorrow so you have time to exercise/write/work on your business
- Call today to arrange a babysitter for THIS week so you can take your wife/husband on a date
- Buy a notebook to start writing down your ideas
- Start tracking the food you eat to see where you can make improvements.
- Make a purchase, start a conversation, or write out your plans and goals.
There are many more actions you could take depending on your specific situation and goals, but the point is to take just one small step now so that you can start the process. Gaining momentum and achieving your biggest goals and dreams starts with one step today, then another tomorrow, and again the next day and so on.
What one step will you take TODAY toward realizing your dream or reaching your goals?
I’d love to hear your response in the COMMENTS section, on Facebook, or by email.
In case you missed it, here are links to the first 2 parts of this 3-part series.
Part 1: Why you don’t know what you want
Part 2: Overcoming your fear of failure and success
To learn more about me and tylerjbrooks.com, check out my About page and this post.
Tyler J. Brooks 