Are you clear on your direction?

As you think about the future you create for yourself, it's important that you know what you're aiming for. Some of you will have goals for the next few years—such as get a new job or start a successful business. Some of you will have a larger 'why' that you want to focus on—such as mentoring people to their dream job or working with innovative climate improving technology.

Having a direction is a great starting point. But it needs to be clear. Simply saying "I want to help people" is extremely vague and doesn't provide any clarity on what you need to be doing now.

The question you must ask is what skills do you need to fulfill your goal?

By answering this, you take something vague and make it extremely actionable. It gives you something you can work on immediately. Something that helps you move towards your goal instead of standing still wasting precious time.

Let me share my approach

The following is my why is and how I approach answering this question.

My why is to inspire a generation of thinkers and doers. The truth is, this is hopelessly vague, so I will qualify it with the following:

1. In a world where we feel more divided, we are seeing less and less constructive discussion that is focused on outcome, but more about 'winning' the majority of opinion.
2. Social media has a huge role to play in how we perceive the world and feel about ourselves.
3. Influencers can use social media to amplify their agenda, which may be for the greater good, or greater harm.
4. The majority of people are spectators watching this playing out and watch societal norms transform under the vocal few.
5. To counteract this, those who have the patience, growth mindset, communication skills, moral compass and courage can help quell the chaos and restore stability and optimism.

Okay, this explains the problem that I want to help solve. I want to help inspire a generation of people who can tackle the greatest of problems with the right mindset, motivation and skills and help spread this positivity for generations to comes.

So how will I do this? What skills do I need to develop in order to fulfill my desire to inspire a generation of thinkers and doers.

At present, this is how I approach it:

• I must help teach others to be at peace with themselves, love themselves and have the courage to do things greater than themselves.
• To help someone be at peace with themself, I must become a better teacher, understand the deeper mechanics of psychology and combine this with an understanding of biology and spirituality.
• To help someone become a better thinker and doer, I must teach the dynamics of communication, critical thinking, knowledge management, etc.
• To become a better teacher I must understand learning and teaching models and combine this with great storytelling.
• To tell stories I must become a better writer and a better video producer.
• To gain deep understanding and insight into the subject I teach, I must become a better reader, note-taker and thinker.
• To help people with my teaching, I must learn how to find those who align with my why.
• To do that, I can create content that helps me practice my skills all while starting my journey of helping inspire a generation of thinkers and doers.

So you can see, this is a continual breakdown of the 'what I want to do' into the 'how I can do it'. Now I have an actionable plan which I can do today.

And a small caveat. This is not the only path to achieving this goal. This is my path, filled with my own passions and areas of interest. I'm curious to link psychology with biology and spirituality. That may not be for everyone, but it's enough for me to gain some amazing skills to explore and bring me closer in the direction of my why.

And this is also why I'm building my own note-taking app. To create a business that helps fuel this greater why. A business that contributes to the heart of helping you think better and take better actions. I also believe that as I learn these skills, I continue to see the gap that helps my note-taking app be transformational compared to any other note-taking app out there.

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