The statement, “You can do anything you put your mind to,” leads us to believe that all you must do is imagine what you’d like to accomplish, set your mind to the task, and wait for success.
To a certain degree this is true. Focused intention combined with action is a powerful force. But the statement is misleading because it fails to mention the difficulty and necessity of focusing your mind on a specific goal.
Most of us don’t know what we want. We think we do, but we really don’t. We only know what we don’t want. We don’t want a boring job. We don’t want to be poor. We don’t want to disappoint our loved ones.
Knowing specifically what you want is much different than knowing what you don’t want. When you only know what you don’t want, your intentions aren’t focused. Consider this example.
Pete doesn’t want to be poor. He’s sick of earning less than his friends, and he’s determined to raise his status. To accomplish this goal, Pete could take many different paths. He could train for a high paying profession, such as doctor or lawyer. He could start his own company, go into real estate, or do many other things that would lead to acquiring wealth.
But Pete isn’t sure what he wants to do. He doesn’t know which path best fits his skills and personality, so he doesn’t resolve to follow any particular path.
Hoping to answer this question, he investigates a dozen possibilities, but as soon as he runs into adversity he decides that path isn’t for him and moves on to a new solution.
Pete’s actions aren’t focused. Although he works very hard, his efforts don’t build on each other. Rather than building one giant impenetrable sand castle, Pete has built twenty smalls ones that are easily toppled. He ends up confused and discouraged. Ultimately Pete’s lack of focus leads to failure.
Now, what if Pete had chosen a specific path? Suppose he decided on the law profession. His actions would have been clearly defined:
- Get a high score on the LSAT
- Attain letters of recommendation
- Get accepted to a good law school
- Decide on a field of law
- Earn a law degree
- Find a high paying job with a good law firm
A set of specific goals is much easier to achieve than a vague end goal like becoming wealthy. Being focused on a path gives Pete a logical set of actions to follow. Each accomplishment is one step closer to the final goal.
I think we can all agree that committing to a clearly defined path, regardless of which one, gives Pete the best chance of becoming wealthy.
But how can he choose a path if he doesn’t know what he wants? Maybe money isn’t his only goal. Maybe he wants to do something he loves at the same time. Maybe he can’t afford to go back to school. Reality is complicated, and Pete doesn’t want to commit too soon.
And that’s why he fails.
But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Most people don’t fit neatly into a predefined path. Forcing yourself into one may lead to success, but it probably won’t make you happy.
This is the point. If you want to be conventionally successful, to attain wealth and status, you need to choose a specific path (preferably something mainstream) and follow it to the letter.
On the other hand, if you aren’t particularly concerned with wealth or success, you can take your time searching for that perfect niche.
Just don’t wait too long to decide. Each moment you deliberate, your already committed competitors sprint further ahead.
But, then again, maybe life isn’t a race, and maybe the most interesting people follow a path all their own.
(24 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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In these days is so hard to find what you really want, because there are to many things, and most people don’t know what they want.
Very true, and one of my personal problems. I think the hardest part is committing to something when there are so many equally attractive alternatives.
[…] Original post by John Wesley […]
[…] John Wesley presents You Aren’t Getting Anywhere Because You Don’t Know What You Want posted at Pick the Brain. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
[…] John Wesley presents: You Aren’t Getting Anywhere Because You Don’t Know What You Want Posted on Pick the Brain www.pickthebrain.com/blog […]
In the last seven years, I’ve moved from assembling computers, to working with teens, to running a back office insurance team and now I’m a regional manager for business continuity.
Even today I don’t know what I want. There are too many goals/things/ideals I want. But rather than choosing only one thing, I prefer to pick and choose the bits I do like. I don’t follow a path. I create one.
Personally I take Steve Jobs advice on this one (from his commencement address at Stanford):
Keep looking. Don’t settle. You’ll know when you find it. These are what I hold.
In my opinion, life is not a competition. It’s more important to be what we love than worrying about competition.
[…] John Wesley says the reason why you are not getting anywhere is because you don’t know what you want. […]
[…] When I coach a man with Disquiet, one of the biggest chunks of work is getting clarity on what he wants. I don’t mean general goals or just a desire for a more satisfying life. What I mean are specific goals. This can be really hard for someone to identify for themselves without some outside help. John Welsey from Pick The Brain makes a great point about this. He writes: Most of us don’t know what we want. We think we do, but we really don’t. We only know what we don’t want. We don’t want a boring job. We don’t want to be poor. We don’t want to disappoint our loved ones. […]
Carnival of a Modern Sage…
Welcome to the March 16, 2007 edition of the Carnival of a Modern Sage! Here you will find great posts from a variety of blogs, on topics such as Healthy Meals, Living Well, Natural Health, Inspiration, Laughter and more! Please Enjoy!
karen along…
[…] John Wesley presents You Aren’t Getting Anywhere Because You Don’t Know What You Want posted at Pick the Brain. […]
[…] Alvaro Fernandez presents Stress Management Workshop for International Women’s Day Matthew Paulson presents How to Get a Decent Job After College Zechary presents Think It Over; ZecHaryW.com Ted Reimers presents How to get into an Ivy League school Debra Moorhead presents Great Expectations? Alexandra Levit presents The Grass Is Always Greener? John Wesley presents You Aren’t Getting Anywhere Because You Don’t Know What You Want Christopher J. Brunner presents The Adverse Effects of Poor Communication […]
[…] These quotes are taken directly from an article I found written by John Wesley titled “You Aren’t Getting Anywhere Because You Don’t Know What You Want“. We can certainly apply the same logic to our goal of weight loss. […]
Hi John, thanks for the inspiration!
My pleasure JoLynn, it’s people like you who inspire me!
John,
What a great post…so true, in today’s world the options are limitless…and the opportunities are so varied and grand. Would be great to see a article (maybe you wrote one already) on how to choose an opportunity and how long you should commit to it. I just started Business Advice Daily, but from the beginning I have a three year commitment to make sure it works. I really enjoy the blog and the associated marketing. It has been really fun to see the blog grow and the audience increase. And like you said set solid goals…thanks for the inspiration for more persperation.
Dave
http://www.BusinessAdviceDaily.com/
Dave,
Making a three year commitment is definitely a good move. You don’t want to give yourself opportunities to back out. When I started this site, I knew it would be a couple years before it really gets established. This really helped during the beginning.
I haven’t written an article dedicated to choosing an opportunity, partly because I’m still not sure where my own life is going.
Living your life is entirely personal, some people might switch back and forth between goals their wholes lives, but if this works best for them, who can say otherwise?
I think that in today’s society, we often don’t take the time to find out what we love. We seem to expect things to come easily and often when they don’t we change course. Much like changing the channel on the TV. IT seemed like there was more on TV when I only had three channels, because at some point I became invested in some of the shows. Now I can barely make it through a commercial without seeing what else is on.
[…] As a consequence of implementing GTD this year–and largely sorting out my inbox–I’ve been reflecting quite a lot on some of my mid-to-long term goals. And this post inspired me to commit some of my thoughts here. […]
[…] John Welsey from Pick The Brain makes a great point about this. He writes: Most of us don’t know what we want. We think we do, but we really don’t. We only know what we don’t want. We don’t want a boring job. We don’t want to be poor. We don’t want to disappoint our loved ones. […]
carnival of wealth building ideas - April 10, 2007…
Welcome to the April 10, 2007 edition of carnival of wealth building ideas.
John Wesley presents You Aren’t Getting Anywhere Because You Don’t Know What You Want posted at Pick the Brain.
almomento presents How to Change Your Money Fate posted a…
where do you go when you dont fit in society or reality,you can hide from one but not both.what if all you can be in life is what life lets you be?what if all life would let you be is nothing like me?
@john doe:
I would highly recommend beginning with loving yourself just as you are. Although I think that there are probably others who are like you and you think you are alone, everything comes back to how you feel about you.
Until you fully love yourself as you are today, how you perceive you “fit” in society doesn’t matter. I, myself, have often felt like an oddity, but what does it matter? I know that many people feel the same way that I do, they just don’t always talk about it.
I’d recommend Louise Hay’s book “Love Yourself, Heal Your Life”. Whether male or female, love is where it’s all at, and you begin with loving you. Follow her exercises and see where you get.
I wish you all the best with this; it will get better if you take the action to work on loving yourself. It is your life and your reality (in your thoughts) that you are living in. As long as you’re not committing crimes against humanity, it’s fine that you are different, in fact it will make you much more interesting.
JoLynn
Your comments are perhaps relevant to people with definite skills and abilities to pursue a path. But they aren’t relevant to my son, who has an good knowledge in some areas which seem to have no practical application. I was really looking for help, but didn’t find any. However, I wish you the best.
John:
This article is very inspirational, and for the most part - true, or rather applicable, and equally interesting are the comments you have received!
Brain:
You can apply comments in any way you personally interpret them to be. That’s why so many different kinds of people are touched by music, whether it is: rock, classical, or jazz, people are still touched by it. Why? Because ’some’ unknown mechanism inside of ourselves (presumably) is triggering a relationship between the comment (or the song in my example) and conducting a response that is appropriate in their state of thought.
What precisely does your son have knowledge of, that you think is not applicable? You see, application of skill is highly relevant to one’s environment. For example, a very skilled car thief, will get into lots of trouble with the law when exercising his skills, however, is a token 17th century like economy, his/her skills might be highly appreciated.
One more thing…
JoLynn, your comment was very well put!
JohnDoe:
Everyone to some extent thinks they do not fit into society, because they don’t. Do you think there is a ‘norm,’ in our dynamic universe? Of course not, there is only the illusion of the norm, which is prescribed by our society on a regular basis that we believe the illusion of a norm. However no such thing ‘exists,’ (except for in our ideal imaginations) because evidently all life is governed by diversity and (seemingly) sporadic motions. In addition, you should not compare yourself with the lives of others; you are not them, and they are not you, you are you, and whatever that may mean is a conjecture for your fanciful imagination. Perhaps your choice is to do nothing, not even get up from your bed, so be it, that is your choice, but make sure you chose what you want to become, and don’t let the ever-changing tides of society conduct ‘who’ you will be (although to an extent, even control is uncontrollable).
[…] John Welsey from Pick The Brain makes a great point about this. He writes: […]
I understand what these guys mean when they say they don’t know where they fit in. This is a big issue in my life right now. I am 24 years old and have pretty much not accomplished anything since I graduated high school. I have jumped from low paying job to low paying job, and taken a few classes in college/universitys. I never get anywhere though. I don’t know what I want to be, and I have no passion for anything other than my loved ones. I feel that as a child I was spread to thin, tried too many things and never stuck to any of them. I played a lot of video games but that hasn’t done anything for me. I always thought I grow up to be a game designer, but have come to realize I know nothing about it and enjoy it even less. I just wanted to come up with the ideas.
I have discovered that I am good at alot of things, but great at nothing. I don;t even know how to define me. The hardest thing to me is feeling out the “about you” section of something like Facebook. I have always strived to make it that the people I am around like me. And I realize now I’ve developed few intrest/talents/opinions that define the person I am. I now feel like an empty shell floating through life, waiting for someting to happen. And when that is the case it is hard to motivate yourself to do anything other than get by, and I am barely pulling that off. I could go on all day, but I’ll see what you think of what I’ve said thus far.
-Ryan
Ryan,
To me it seems like you are waiting for your passion to come up and grab you. I used to think the same way, and it doesn’t work. Instead of waiting, I recommend actively looking for what you want to do.
Try to new things, experiment, take some chances. You’ll never find what you are really good at unless you get out there and look for it.
I’m definitly trying, but as much as everything cost these days, Its pretty tough to get out their any explore, when your struggling to pay your bills.
Ryan
In my opinion, the only thing worse than not knowing where you want to go - is going somewhere only to find out that you don’t REALLY want to be there! Life is too short to spend time on something unless you are SURE that it will leave you happy in the end.
My test for deciding what you really want?
If something is causing you some degree of stress, frustration, anger, anxiety - or ANY other negative emotion, simply ask yourself: “Is this worth it? If I knew that I only had six months left to live, would I want to spend my time and energy on this?”
[…] Work, future, indecision, meaning of life, motivation Here’s a nice post from the fine blog Pick The Brain on a problem that has been nagging me ever since I dropped out of grad school: What the hell do I […]
We can gain a better understanding of what we want by opening the gift of childhood.
Finding out what you really want truly is so important, one of the most important things in the world. Sadly most of us live according to what others want - our parents, society, TV. Sucks, but even now I still feel some old conditioning working on me.
Cheers,
Albert | UrbanMonk.Net
Modern personal development, entwined with ancient spirituality.
[…] picking the most expensive school might not be useful if the education is rated the same. Know why you want to go to school or the money will be […]
Hi John,
I appreciate your slew of wisdom. I found your blog a few days ago. — about your post: When I first started attending college, I knew that it wasn’t for me, or at least felt that way. I decided to leave and get a job working in film (which is what I wanted to do). I did that for about 4 years and reached some success. But then, about a year ago, I decided I wanted to finish my education. I’ve been attending school ever since, at a community college here in Los Angeles, and it’s fantastic. For about $20 a unit I’m taking great classes, and learning great stuff. I also bought a few books on tape, which I can highly recommend: (check out www.theteachingcompany.com)
Here’s my question for you and for other readers: I’m applying to schools now to transfer. I’m considered a non-traditional student, because I didn’t follow the “normal” path. I’m about to be 24 and applying to finish my undergrad degree. Some schools seem to frown upon this. Whatever. I’m wondering, in your opinion, does the institution matter? Maybe, not so much the institution, but the professors the institution is able to garner? Or the other students? Or the resources?
Am I better transferring to some place like UC Santa Barbara this fall, or waiting another year and applying to some of the “couture brand” institutions?
For Patrick:
I disagree with you that “the only thing worse than not knowing where you want to go - is going somewhere only to find out that you don’t REALLY want to be there!” Life is an experiment and you have to be ready to try stuff and see how it works out. Sure, life is short, that’s why if you don’t like something then you have to be prepared to move on. But if you DON’T do something based on it being stressful or frustrating then your actually ending up worse: there was some post, I think it was on this site, about the different learning curves between a drop-out, an amateur and an expert…the drop-out does what he does because of frustration, the amateur makes it to where he is with time, the expert makes it to where he is through time, focus and passion to make it where he’s gotta.
I worked for some time in film, because I thought that it’s what I wanted to ultimately do, but after some time, I realized that it wasn’t, that there’s more in life than just that, and I moved on. And it’s totally ok.
[…] ist es besser, sich zu fokussieren und zu fragen: “What Do You REALLY Want?”. Diese Frage stellt PickTheBrain.com. Wenn man nur weiss, was man nicht will, wird man dadurch […]
[…] when you are sick with the flu or cold. Only use eucalyptus for the time need to clear you cold. Long-term use of this oil has an effect on the […]
This is a very good question and you’ve outlined some very good things. I really like the emphasis on being focused and narrowing down to specific goals. Finding what you want really takes some soul searching and the knowledge that what you really want will always take effort through the good times and bad.
[…] I found this 2 articles. Finding The Path to Meaningful Existence What do You REALLY Want? […]
hey there, thanks
[…] they go to bed. Depending on how serious their condition is, the person might worry more about problems pertaining to themselves, or about worldly issues that are affecting other people. Either way, […]