Why achieving clarity is your most essential business ingredient

 

I’ve been re-reading Robin Sharma’s global best-selling story ‘The Monk who Sold his Ferrari’ lately.  It’s a story full of interesting analogies and lessons. There’s one that always pops for me and I'd like to dwell on here. 

 

An Archer, a tree and a rose

Imagine this scenario. There’s a large oak tree in the middle of a field.  A rose is fixed to this. A very accomplished archer, able to hit any target from 300ft is standing 100ft away from the tree with his bow and arrow. It’s easily within his range and he’s confident. He’s then blindfolded and is tasked to hit the target. What happens? He turns towards the target. He steadies himself. He takes aim. He misses by a significant margin.

The monk explains ‘You will never be able to hit a target you cannot see’.  

It makes sense, doesn’t it?  No matter how accomplished or talented an archer you are, you cannot hit a target that you cannot see.  Of course, you may hit it by fluke but the chances of that are tiny.  You may miss it by a long mile, you may miss it by a hair’s breadth – you won’t even know because you cannot see it.

‘What has this got to do with business?’ you might ask.

This little story is a lesson on clarity. It’s highlighting how critical it is to identify your target and equip yourself with what you need to see it clearly.

 

Achieving Clarity: a major business challenge

One of the most common challenges experienced by the business owners and industry leaders I work with is the challenge of achieving and maintaining clarity. My coaching clients are mostly busy, productive and progressive people who get a lot done and generate plenty of momentum.

Yet they often share that they find it hard to focus on the right things and to even be certain of what the right thing is. As we work through a series of questions and answers, they tell of how they are unsure that the work they are doing is bringing them nearer to where they want to be. It turns out that that picture of where they want to be is not so clear – it’s a picture that is fuzzy, hazy, and sometimes even blank. One person described it to me as the feeling of driving a car with the brakes on or, sometimes with a blindfold on. A stark metaphor indeed!

 

Achieving the right kind of clarity takes the right kind of work!

Clarity doesn’t just happen, and busyness is often the enemy of clarity.

You can get up any morning and focus on your To Do List. However, you can’t just get up and focus on the things that move your life forward. Why not? Because you have to first put in the work that gets you really clear on what success looks like for you, on what exactly it is you want to achieve, on what exactly are the most impactful things for your life and your business.

 

A 4-Part Success System

 

 To focus, you need first to be clear on your dreams, vision and  goals. Otherwise, what would you focus on?

 

 

I believe strongly in the power of visioning and intentional planning, of listening to your heart and then deploying your head to make your business dreams and vision a reality. This approach didn’t come naturally to me. I’ve worked hard to learn it, develop it and embed it. It has transformed my life and my business and I’ve seen it change the lives and work of others on an ongoing basis.

I developed it into the 4 Part Success System, which I originally used just for myself and now share with my coaching clients and our members in The Huddle. It’s built on 4 connected fields that continuously replenish each other:

• Dreams: an expression of what it is that you would truly love to be, do or have in life. It’s based on listening to your heart and tapping into your intuition at a deep level, being brave enough to articulate the most ambitious and outlandish aspirations you have, irrespective of your current context.
• Vision : your definition of success for a particular period of time. It’s a picture in words or images of the destination you want your business to arrive at within a month, a quarter or a year. It’s described in rich sensory detail as if you’ve already achieved it.

• Goals : how you anchor your dreams and vision through setting specific business targets or outcomes that are measurable, realistic, achievable and time-bound.
• Focus: the daily habits and rituals that make sure you and your team keep an eye on the dream, vision and goals, that help you on a daily basis say yes to the right stuff and no to the rest.

 Success at a business level is built on gaining clarity on your dreams, vision and business goals and then enabling yourself to focus on your path to success. It’s about achieving clarity for your decision-making.

 

Tina O'Dwyer

Tina is a Certified High Performance Coach specialising in tourism. She has extensive experience in sustainable tourism, regenerative tourism, food tourism, networks, clusters and collaborations. To avail of any of our coaching services you can contact us at [email protected] or sign up to our newsletter below for weekly industry insights. Alternatively, you can book a 15-Minute Focus Call with Tina here. To gain extra clarity for your business, you can also sign up to the 5-Step Clarity Course here.