It’s easy to get lost in the wilderness if you don’t have a map and a compass to guide you. The same philosophy applies to your life and career goals. You need to take a step back to recalibrate and see if you’re still heading in the right direction.
Long term success is dependent on knowing where you are now and where you are headed. Then, closing the gap. Frequently. Continuously. Whether it’s your business, your career or your life at home, it’s easy to get off track, lose touch, spin out or get buried under. Without a true sense of where you are in the moment, it is impossible to realize your dreams or be a leader in your field.
The only way we can take 100% responsibility for sustaining our success is to keep recalibrating in every aspect of our lives and organizations. Key to successful recalibration is to acquire what my dear departed mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, coined as Profound Knowledge. This umbrella phrase emphasizes understanding change and how to measure it, being aware of emerging trends and shifts, and learning how to apply this knowledge to leading and sustaining long term success.
Bottom line: If we don’t acquire Profound Knowledge, we cannot know how to prepare for and leverage coming change, thus how to sustain our success long-term.
Most of us are going so fast we are on autopilot. Always going for more…more…more. But when we are asked why we want to achieve more, most of us turn to old criteria, much of it not completely relevant anymore. Wrote Ellen Glasgow, “A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success…after the reason for which we sought it has passed.” For some the old success criteria have no more bearing on current markets, relationships or scenarios. Others just need tweaking.
What I’ve found to be true for most of us is that if we future-forward our current situation into the probable future, we will be surprised at the outcome. It’s when we close our eyes and go unconscious that we lose sight of what really matters. Then we go off track or lose our way.
Remaining ahead of the curve depends on frequent reality checks. You don’t have to be a fortune teller to effectively assess where you and your business are headed, but you do need to take the time to tell if there is, indeed, the fortune you seek in your future.
Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash
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