Our direction is one and only one. Also, it is a noun, not a verb. I do this emphasis to clarify many misundertandigs on the subjetc that could be rather obvious. The direction where we live is a case, the direction of our life plan is another, a business direction is another, they have some differences with each other but they start from the same concept. In all of them, the direction is one and only one. When there are multiple directions to pursue there is also a total contradiction because the second, third or fourth directions are itself a denial of the first one. The same is true if you speak of high, medium or low direction to follow. In addition, the direction must be detailed and specific in all cases.
For example, applied to the case of the place or direction where we live. It is not possible, and we better never try to check it out, pretend to apply it to personal or family life and say that you live around the area of apartment "305". That is, if you got to sleep in the apartment "304" or "306" does not matter because you are close enough to the target; the same happens if you got to "205" or "405", a little up or down is not so bad. This level of approchement although it has some merit it will be unacceptable in that context and if it is repeated on several occasions we can imagine the causes and consequences.
If we extend this assessment to the direction of the personal life plan it is also valid. Our life plan, which we must be intentional in having, reviewing, updating and tracking, must also have a clear direction. If we have no life plan, we are unconsciously giving up our great potential and belonging to another. Be very careful with this. Coming back, this life plan has direction. And the most important thing about knowing this precise direction is that we know that everything outside of it are distractions that can take you away from the goal temporarily or definitively.
And appealing to our junior year physics, a coordinate vector specifies the orientation of the arrow and also the magnitude of the force with which it directs this direction. Very important this concept because in the life plan by maintaining our constant direction each time the magnitude or force of progress is greater if we are doing the task well. We can call this experience, learning, development, growth or in financial terms the compound effect. If we change orientation we will be sacrificing some of the previously gained force; although I recognize that in life there are slight changes in orientation that compensate for slight reductions in force momentarily.
And in our life plan as in the case of the directions of our house, knowing exactly where we want to get will prevent us from the distractions that are around our goal, which, however good, close or attractive they may seem, will end up being a waste of time and effort that could have been much better spent. We return here to the concept of compound effect.
To identify the direction of the life plan you have to know inwardly which port you aspire to reach and which route is worth enjoying with all its highs and lows. That is, from the beginning, the life plan must have as its source of inspiration the purpose and meaning of one's life. This purpose is the summary of four areas of performance: profession, vocation, mission and passion. The profession we get paid to do it, the vocation we know how to do it, the mission the world needs it and passion we want to do it. Some authors like John Maxwell place greater weight on passion. Maybe but never stop looking the other ones. In my case, I am more inclined to recommend the balance of the four. The meaning of life revolves more around style to achieve that purpose. That's a very important topic beyond the reach of this blog.
This healthy combination of life plan and purpose brings us very close to the high performance I spoke on my blog two weeks ago. That high performance in which you enjoy the journey, without stress, living life well, as we all deserve. "Life is simple but hard to maintain like this" and "The hardest person to lead is yourself" are short sentences from John Maxwell that apply very well to this case.
Finally, if we want to apply direction to the organization and all individuals know what direction is about on a personal scale, the task is greatly simplified and gives me the feeling that I almost don't have much more to say, but one. The leaders of the organization should know better than everyone else what it is the direction of their home (integrity) and the direction of their life plan to be experienced and have empathy with their followers.
Then, they must know how to listen, communicate, trust and be trustworthy and influence (genuine leadership). At the organizational level all previous efforts and behaviors mentioned above converge, it is also where the faults will be noticed. In this case it is important not to cover these fallancies with authoritarian impositions. No one is perfect, neither leaders nor followers nor organizations. However, the process and life will be facilitated when we know what your direction is!
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