Clarifying Your Vision to Succeed in Life — Simon Sinek’s Start With WHY
[Bill Gates] saw the personal computer as a way for the little man to take on a corporation. If he could figure out a way to get it in the hands of the individual, he thought, the computer would give nearly anyone the ability to perform many of the same functions as a vastly better resourced company. The personal computer could level the playing field and change the way the world operated.
Microsoft had a vision and a purpose that drove them forward. It was a clear and ambitious vision, so provided motivation to everyone in the company and gave impetus and meaning to their work. A clear vision maintains enthusiasm and the drive to keep going.
In the world of the internet and, considering how powerful phones are, we can do anything. We have so much power to leverage our talents, find our niches and market to the entire world. Anything can be leveraged and monetised. The only difficulty is to find our passion and our why. From there we are only limited by our creativity in distributing that passion.
Peer pressure works not because the majority or the experts are always right, but because we fear that we may be wrong.
We constantly have doubts and fears of being wrong. Consider imposter syndrome, we assume our success isn’t warranted. This self-doubt and fear of being wrong means we often sacrifice our individuality to fit in with the crowd, to have the same views as them and act in the same manner. At least we can be wrong together! However, this destroys all creativity and progress. We need to have more self-belief, pursue what is unique to us and what interests us. Don’t worry about how unconventional it may be or that we are the only one in our social circle doing it. It doesn’t mean that it is wrong. It just means that it is unique to us!
Pursuing our own interests and passions in a healthy way is never wrong and, as said before, we can monetise anything. Like to draw: sell your art. Read a lot: write about what you read. Review TV shows, films, anything you consume. If you have a skill, teach it. There will always be someone out there who wants to learn or share an interest. All they are looking for is someone who is passionate about the topic. Follow your passions, people will recognise authenticity and with consistency, it will pay off.
I can make a decision with 30 percent of the information,” said former secretary of state Colin Powell. “Anything more than 80 percent is too much.”
We are always looking to make the perfect decision or have the perfect amount of information, but this will never be the case. Information overload can also be a problem and can delay decision making rather than push it forward. If we have a clear why for what we are doing, we can speed up decision making as we are filtering information based on a clear vision. Does this fit my why? If not then it isn’t worth doing.
We need to have more confidence in our decision making and also have the experience of making bad decisions so we know why they were bad decisions. What were we doing at the time? What was our mindset? It is much more important to have a clear head when making decisions than an excess of information.
“Wall Street is in the business of making money between now and next Tuesday,” he said in the 20/20 interview. “We’re in the business of building an organization, an institution that we hope will be here fifty years from now.”
Think about your timescale. Everyone is looking to try and cram as much as they can into one day and then inevitably burn out and need to take time off after a while. The goal is to stay in the game for as long as possible and the best way to go about this is to make small consistent steps. There is no need to get everything done in one week or even one month. Plan for years and you will be amazed at how much can be accomplished. Long-term planning requires discipline and consistency as we won’t get the rush of seeing results, but the results will be better and longer lasting. To combat this lack of visible accomplishment, break down your long-term goals into smaller achievements that can be done in a month or a week. Use this to keep your momentum going and to motivate you to keep pursuing the goal.
Learning the WHY of a company or an organization or understanding the WHY of any social movement always starts with one thing you
Ultimately, everything we do requires us to have the right mindset and the clarity over what we are doing. If we clearly know why we are doing something, we feel a greater sense of purpose and are more motivated to do it. This is the essential factor. If we have no purpose, no why then we will not stick with it and honestly we shouldn’t. The drive comes from us and can infect the entire enterprise we are engaged in. If we don’t believe in it then it will show and anyone else involved will feed off that. Workout what motivates you, what is your why and how does that translate into your profession or your hobbies? Why do you do what you do? Once you can identify this then you can inject that into everything that you do and people will notice.
All quotes from Start With Why, Simon Sinek.
