Wednesday, June 1, 2011

3 Essential Components for Gaining Clarity






If you have driven your car in a thick fog then you know the fear or uneasiness that comes with not being sure of what is hidden from your sight. Your senses are on edge trying to discern what is coming your way. A deer in the road? An unexpected turn? A stopped vehicle? An icy patch?

Unlike a foggy day, mental fog results from being overworked, un-prioritized activity or subjection to the tyranny of the urgent. We are able to have control over mental fog. These three components are indispensable for gaining clarity and they are in your immediate control:

  • Intentionality. Clarity does not just happen. You have to make up your mind that you are going to get clarity and do what needs to be done to make it happen.
  • Distraction-free Thinking Space. When phones ring, people interrupt, text messages ping, to-do lists grow, urgencies clamor for your attention or other demands jump on the front burner you cannot gain the overall clarity you need. (You may find momentary clarity for each little thing that arises, but don't mistake crisis control for life control.) To gain clarity you must break away for a mental retreat.
  • A Proven Process to Guide Your Thinking. "You don't know what you don't know." A process is nothing more than a step-by-step method of getting you to your desired outcome. Your desired outcome is clarity; do you know step by step what you need to do to get there?

These three components are absolutely essential for gaining clarity for your life, your profession or your business. Eliminate just one of these three components and try to imagine the outcome. Today has enough challenges of its own without creating an underperforming method to gaining clarity.

This one added element is like putting your clarity on steroids.

Clarity? How do you know if you have clarity or not?

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