At the heart, clarity is achieved by knowing the what and the how. It’s the answer to the two questions “what do you want?” and “how will you get it?”
When you know the answers to those two questions about a situation, you have clarity. Many business leaders are going through goal setting exercises for the upcoming year. Isn’t that all goal setting really is… answering the questions about what you want and how you’ll get it. The key to really great goal setting – and to achieve clarity – is to go deeper into the “how” until it becomes tangible.
When you have clarity, you’ll find that you don’t have stress.
Stress hangs out on the effect side of life. Effect in this context means things are being done to you and out of your control. The feeling of a loss of control is a leading cause of stress. That stress manifests itself in different ways. We can feel powerless and like a victim causing us to shrink or procrastinate. We can also feel anger and resentment causing us to lash out in potentially harmful ways. Clearly, this is not the side of life of sustained success and happiness.
Clarity brings you back to being at cause in your life. When you’re at cause, you are responsible for making things happen. You create your results and you feel the power is in your hands, not someone or something else. This is a state that manifests confidence.
Having clarity is a hallmark of confident people. Confidence happens when you know what you want and you know how you’re going to get it.
The image I share with clients is that of a hill. What you want is at the top of the hill. You can see it, you know it’s there. The path in front of you to go up the hill is the how. Taking steps along the path is how you will get to the top and have what you want. To illustrate why the “what” and “how” are crucial, imagine the hill with what you want at the top with no path. Stress happens because you don’t know how to get it. Again, imagine a hill with a path yet there’s no known endpoint. Stress happens because you don’t know where or why you’re going somewhere.
When we feel stressed about a situation, take a step back and find some clarity. Or, when looking at a situation, create clarity to avoid the stress in the first place. It’s simple, yet it does take intention.
Here’s the 5 questions to get clarity – the what and the how.
- What specifically do you want to accomplish?
- What are all the possible ways to achieve it?
- What are you not seeing or considering?
- What information/education do you need to make a decision about which path is best?
- What could get in the way and how will you react and adjust in that situation?
These questions will help you not only see what you want, it will help you figure out what to do to get there. Plus, it factors in roadblocks so that you feel even more prepared to walk up the path to get what you want at the top. You’ll have a natural confidence because you know your what and how even in the face of adversity.
Replace stress with confidence when you have clarity.