How To Get Clarity On What To Do Next
For most of my life, I have been a goal-setter.
Goals always gave me something worthwhile to work toward. They helped me develop a vision for an upgraded future that I wanted to become my reality.
That pursuit gave excitement about a purpose to pursue and a set of problems to overcome.
My first big goal was to become a professional baseball player. I loved playing baseball and the challenge of getting better at it (and competing with others) presented. I also grew up at the height of MTV Cribs culture, so as a kid, the idea of getting rich and famous was also enticing!
I wanted it so badly that I dedicated my last two years of high school and my first three years of college almost entirely to achieving that goal.
This goal gave me crystal-clear direction about what I should do every day. I knew that if I wanted to make it, I needed to get bigger, faster, and stronger. I also needed to develop my throwing, catching, and hitting skills and mindset.
So, that’s what I did, day in and day out.
6 am and 6 pm batting practices (before school and after practices) were the norm.
Scouring the web for slow-motion clips of my heroes in the sport so I could dissect their swings was a weekend hobby.
I lived and breathed all things baseball.
And I got better at it. My skills began to stack, and as they stacked, my results improved.
My high school career finished with me being...
Two-time team captain & team MVP
Two time all league & all-area
All-state selection as a senior
Selected as one of about 15 players from the four all-state teams to the All-Washington team
These successes led to me getting the opportunity to play Division 1 college baseball, eventually becoming a team captain and playing in what was then the Pac-10.
I was getting closer to realizing my childhood dream and achieving my first major life goal!
But then something happened. Something changed.
As my baseball career in college progressed, I found myself enjoying it less and less.
What had always energized me and been fun and challenging began to feel like a job I didn’t enjoy (and it WAS a job as I was trading my time and talent for education via a scholarship).
But it was more than just not being as fun anymore.
It became clear that some guys were created to play professional sports, and I was not one of them. They were, as we called them, freaks of nature. I realized that my body had limitations that my mind did not.
I learned that in almost all cases, even if you make it to the major leagues, you have to stay there for several years before you’re even eligible to make the big bucks. Most pros have slim chances of making it for that long (nobody ever explained that to me as a kid). A huge part of the initial incentive structure (making money) was much different than I had understood.
By this time, I had several friends playing minor league baseball, traveling around in buses half of the year, making $800-1,200 per month during the season, and having to find jobs in the off-season. That life sounded miserable to me, and I was married (I got married at 20), so it was a non-starter for us.
Then, after my junior year, I had a workout for the Cincinnati Reds. It was right before the trading deadline, and they had some roster spots to fill.
After that workout, they asked me if I wanted to sign a free-agent contract and start playing pro ball.
I finally had a chance to realize my childhood dream, or at least part of it (my ultimate dream was never the minor leagues, but in the minors, you’re still a pro).
This was a big “fork-in-the-road” moment.
I had dedicated the last six years of my life to getting to this point.
This would be the achievement of my biggest life goal thus far.
This would prove the people in my life wrong who had told me I would never achieve this goal.
But, it would also lead me down a path I knew I no longer wanted to go.
It would separate me from my wife, who was far more important to me than this achievement.
It would likely delay my development and progress toward the life I ultimately wanted as, by this time, I knew I was not major-league material.
It would stroke my ego but put a ceiling (at least temporarily) on my potential.
So, I declined the offer.
I decided to return to college, play my last year of baseball, get my degree, and re-assess my future.
My last year came and went, and my baseball career ended.
But, the skills I stacked during that time were the foundation for what I would do for the rest of my life.
My baseball journey taught me lessons I couldn’t have learned anywhere else!
It taught me that hard work usually beats talent and that talent plus hard work always wins.
It taught me what it’s like to show up every day and compete for your job against someone who wants it just as badly as you do. It also taught me the mindset you must develop to be successful as a competitor.
It taught me how to be a good teammate with the person you’re competing against and still want to see him succeed, even when he’s trying to take your job.
It taught me that great teams always go farther than great individuals. Great teams are made up of individuals who know and do their jobs and understand that all jobs are important.
It taught me when to speak my mind and when to keep my mouth shut.
It taught me how to lead and when to follow.
It taught me how to assess my gifts and talents, identify the same in others, and order them to deliver the best possible outcome for everyone involved (and what it looks like when that doesn’t happen).
And so many more lessons.
Although my baseball career had ended, during those last few years, I had learned to apply these lessons to my educational pursuits.
I had taken my love for research, learning, and growth and began applying them to my mind.
I graduated from Washington State University Cum Laude (over 3.5 GPA), which is not an easy feat given the 56-game baseball schedule and was named to ESPN The Magazine's District VIII All-Academic Second Team.
And herein lies a major lesson.
When we fail to achieve something we desire (or pivot to a new goal), we can choose to feel defeated and depressed, getting stuck in our misery, or we can choose to acknowledge all the lessons we learned and the skills we developed. We can find excitement that we are taking an upgraded version of ourselves into the next chapter of our lives!
I was pivoting my pursuit of excellence from athletics to life, from the body to the mind, and using the principles I learned about the former to fuel the latter.
I was evolving as a person.
I was leveling up, like in a video game. I had conquered one level by developing the skills and the mindset needed for that level, advancing to the next level, where I’d have to develop new skills and upgrade my mindset to face whatever it threw at me.
And so much of life is like that.
Every time we level up, we upgrade our life. We stack our skills. We compound what we’ve learned and experienced to become a better version of ourselves.
Leveling up often starts with a goal, a vision for what you want and where you’re going.
A goal often arises from a void, problem, or barrier in life. When we dislike something, we create a goal that, if achieved, will alleviate the pain and displeasure of our current situation.
To reach that goal, we must develop new skills, a better mindset, and learn to use new tools.
When we don’t have goals and a vision for where we’re going, we flounder aimlessly through life. This is a dangerous place because there’s no reason to grow and push ourselves to see what level of the game we can get to.
My life was very different before I found baseball and had a tangible goal.
In third grade, I got in big trouble for breaking a bunch of windows at a Jewish synagogue and stealing a bunch of stuff from random stores with my friends.
My friend group worsened in fourth and fifth grade, and I was headed down a dangerous road. During these years, I witnessed things that would devastate me if any of my kids, some of whom are now that age, were seeing them at that age.
Middle school and the first year and a half of high school didn’t improve much. During these years, I was hanging out with new friends (I moved after fifth grade because of where things were headed for me). But even with the change of environment, without any real goals, I found myself floundering, drinking, smoking weed, playing sports for fun, and trying to impress girls.
I don’t want to paint the wrong picture here. During my early years, I wasn’t always getting into trouble. I had just had some colorful early childhood experiences and was trying to find my way.
But everything changed, and I went through my first life transformation when I realized I was a pretty good baseball player, fell in love with the sport, had a coach tell me I was capable if I’d put in the work, and set a goal to make it my profession someday.
There was no more floundering.
I now had a clear vision of where I wanted to go.
I knew what mindset and skills I needed to develop to overcome the barriers that would try to keep me from reaching it, and I dedicated my time, attention, and effort to making it a reality.
The entire trajectory of my life changed after this, and I experienced a HUGE UPGRADE due to just getting clarity on what I was pursuing.
If you find yourself unclear about where you’re going and what you’re pursuing and, as a result, you feel like you’re floundering a bit, this week’s challenge will help you work through what you’re pursuing and help you get the clarity you need to feel confident in your pursuits and unlock your next upgrade!
This week's challenge...
Do you have clear goals for your life?
Life has five key pillars (IMO): Faith, Relationships, Health, Work, and Money.
Do you have clear goals for each of these areas? If not, you will likely lack clarity about what to do. You need clarity to avoid finding yourself frustrated and discouraged.
*As a quick side note, I don’t assign timelines to my goals. I think timelines set you up for failure. I attribute actions to goals, as I can control actions but not outcomes.
Take some time and write down your big goals for each pillar.
What would you like your Faith, Relationships, Health, Work, and Money to look like? Be as specific as you can.
Now that you have your goals, it’s time to identify the barriers and problems keeping you from their achievement.
Write down a list of barriers and problems for each goal.
Next, for each goal, write down the skills you will need to develop to overcome those barriers and solve those problems.
To develop those skills, you must upgrade your mindset and change your thinking and what you believe is possible.
How many of those skills do you currently posses? How many of them are you naturally gifted in and how many do you actually enjoy and find interesting?
Next to each goal, write down the mindset you need to develop to achieve it, solve the problems, and overcome the barriers.
What will you need to believe?
How will your thinking have to change?
Here’s a tip. This identifies who you need to become to solve these problems, overcome the barriers, and achieve your goals. If you start being this person NOW, you will greatly expedite the development process (skills and tools).
For some goals, you’ll also need new tools. You may need to learn how to use a tool for a goal. I had to learn how to use a bat, glove, and ball in baseball. You may need to learn to use a computer, an app, etc.
For each goal, write down what tools you think would help make achieving the goal easier, more efficient, etc.
If any of your goals are really big, meaning you’re shooting for the top 10% of result-getters, you’ll need to become a master.
If you have any of those, next to each goal, write down three things you believe you’ll need to master to truly get to this level.
People don’t get to the right side of the bell curve in anything without becoming a master at what most people are simply mediocre at.
If this is what you’re pursuing, mastery is the path.
These steps will help you clarify your actions. Next week, we’ll explore the why behind those actions!
If you’re a driven, ambitious person, you’re not stuck or procrastinating because you’re lazy.
It’s because you lack CLARITY.
Clarity results from knowing what you’re trying to accomplish, what stands in the way, who you need to become to achieve it, and what you need to do!
These six steps will help you develop that initial clarity and unlock an upgrade in your life.
I know because I created this for MYSELF recently. I’ve leveled up several times (maybe I’ll share a few other stories later), but I recently felt stuck, floundering, not knowing what to do next.
When I peeled the onion back, I realized I had achieved the goals I had been pursuing for the last several years, and I no longer had a clear vision of where I was trying to go.
So, I spent a lot of time thinking through all of this and putting something together that has helped give me clarity and renewed excitement about what I’m pursuing and where I’m going!
If it can work for me, it can work for you too.
To help you get more out of completing the challenge, I’ve created a simple Excel spreadsheet to help with the exercise.
If you want to download the spreadsheet, you can do that (here). This way, you’ll have everything written down and organized, and you can modify it over time as you achieve your current goals and set new ones.
After you’ve completed this challenge, there’s one more BIG STEP that we will need to add that will help you discern whether or not your goals will bring fulfillment when you achieve them (the WHY behind them)!
Nobody taught me this step and had they; it would have saved me a lot of anguish over the years.
This is the missing link in most conversations around goals.
It will unlock an even bigger upgrade.
I will unveil this one in next week’s challenge, so if you don’t want to miss it, sign up for my weekly challenge (here).
