Very few people across the globe have clarity on what they truly want in life. Many people think it’s money, a passionate career, certain accomplishments, loving relationships or even a certain status. While none of these things are bad. At our core though these answers are still surface level.
Gaining clarity can be the greatest gift you give yourself in life. Yet very few people actually take the time to sit down and decide what these answers are. We all seem to have this unique ability to list off everyone else’s life script but rarely our own.
It’s something that I am even challenged with to this day. Over the past year I have gained more clarity than ever before. There are still pieces of the puzzle to be solved. One of my mentors challenged me the other day with this exercise…
He asked me, “Ryan what would your dream day look like”? If you could write down in complete detail what that day would look like. I quickly thought, ehhh that’s easy. I can shoot that off my head pretty quickly.
What I realized within about 10 seconds is my answer had already started on the surface level. I began to mention that I wanted my day to start before sunrise with a meditation then coffee outside in my backyard by myself…
He cut me off and then the questions began flooding towards me…
What time was before sunrise. How long was my meditation. What time did it start and finish. What type of coffee did I want? Did I want my coffee fixed a certain way? What would the backyard look like and what would I be sitting in? Where was the house/backyard located?
Beyond The Surface
This was one of those “OH SHIT” moments. I realized again there continues to be levels to this concept of clarity. You see clarity is where I start with so many people during our initial conversations. For many it’s clarity on the emotions you want to feel throughout your day.
I put together a chart that defines what we are after as people. It doesn’t matter if it means you are looking to be a high achiever in life, sports or relationships… It looks like this:
Growth creates standards → standards create environment → environment creates excellence → excellence creates enthusiasm
Most people chase after this backwards though. You ask people what they want and it usually revolves around the end of the chart within “excellence” or “enthusiasm” .
That alone is where the majority of people make their mistakes. We know in the back of our minds we can not skip keeps toward any accomplishments we desire. So why do we think it’s possible here?
The short answer is that so many people try to sell us on quick fixes. That’s another reason people become frustrated because they try something for 3-4 days and come back and claim it doesn’t work!
Guru’s and experts try to say they can improve team performance in one conversation with their team. Think how illogical that sounds. How many things in life have been done that we only needed 1 time for a couple hours and everything changed.
The answer is very few if any! That’s why starting with Growth and Standards is so critical.
Step 1 For Growth
Step one for our growth and the ability to raise our standards is Clarity! Before we can grow we must get very clear on what it is we desire. We can not achieve high levels of excellence if we don’t know the type of person we must grow towards.
It’s difficult to grow our relationships, when we don’t know what type of relationships we actually desire.
It does not mean you must have the perfect answer. You just need to start and the rest will begin developing itself. You see that’s a huge reason people never start to answer these questions because they feel like they need to have the perfect answers.
*Side note: Another reason why having a powerful mentor is so critical because as you start answering these questions they help guide you towards what it is you want.
These answers are not found but rather these answers continue to develop over time. For some reason we believe if we put it off long enough some perfect answer will come to us. Then we will be able to move forward.
It’s why so many people live the majority of their lives constantly reacting to everything that’s happening.
Most people struggle to take control of their lives because they have little clarity on what they want.
Why Clarity is Powerful
Clarity empowers us in so many ways. Clarity is correlated with both self-esteem and confidence.
The greater sense of clarity people have the greater they feel about themselves. How positive we feel about ourselves is tied to how well we know ourselves.
Our confidence is tied to how often we are constantly thinking about ourselves and determining if we are living the person we actually want to be. Most people struggle with confidence because years or decades of outside forces impose a certain identity on them.
We do have this unique superpower to choose what the hell we want. It’s your life. Your goals, relationships, career, happines and Joy.
As I mentioned, something powerful to gain clarity on is your emotions. I typically ask people what’s the number one emotion you feel throughout your day? Then what emotion do you want to feel the most?
Most common answers are stress for emotion felt most and happiness is what they crave. So you know both of those answers are wildly surface level. I spend at least an entire individual session dissecting these two answers.
So I challenge you to start getting more clarity on what you desire in life. It could be describing your perfect day. The emotions you feel and/or want to feel? What’s exciting in your life right now? What could be more exciting in your life? Are you growing in your sport/career?
You must continue to grow and the first step is getting clear!
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