NLP: The Power of Clarity
In a television interview, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt (H.L. Hunt)—a man who rose from a bankrupt farmer in the 1930s to a multibillionaire by the time of his death in 1974—was asked what advice he would give to people who want to be financially successful. He replied that only two things are necessary. First, you must decide exactly what you want to achieve. Most people never do this in their entire lives. Second, you must determine what price you’ll have to pay to get what you want, and then decide to pay that price.
Clear Goals Are Essential
Clear goals and objectives are vital for success in any endeavor, including something as important as building your own career. If you don’t spend enough time clarifying what you truly want to achieve, you’re doomed to spend your life working toward someone else’s goals. Without a clear direction, you’ll either drift aimlessly in routine or build a career you don’t actually want. Sure, you might earn some money and do interesting work, but the end result won’t be what you consciously wanted to create. Eventually, you’ll be left with the feeling that somewhere along the way, you took a wrong turn. Have you ever looked at what you’re doing and wondered, “How did I end up here?”
If goal setting is so important, why do so few people take the time to clearly define where they want to go? Part of the answer is a lack of knowledge about how to set clear goals. You spend years in school but never learn how to set goals properly. There’s also a widespread reluctance to recognize the huge importance of clear goal setting. But those who truly know what they want often outperform everyone else.
One of the most common obstacles to setting goals is the fear of making a mistake. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Setting any goal is better than drifting aimlessly without direction. The surest path to failure is avoiding clear decisions you’re committed to. If you don’t know where you’re going, every day is wasted. You may be spending most of your time achieving someone else’s goals. This suits fast-food owners, TV advertisers, and the companies whose products you’re hooked on just fine. If you don’t decide what you really want, you’re handing control of your future to the whims of others. That’s a mistake. By deciding for yourself and keeping control, you gain an incredible sense of agency that most people never experience.
Many people assume that having a general sense of direction means they have goals. But that’s not the case. This only creates the illusion of progress. “Make more money” or “build a business” are not goals. A goal must be specific, clearly defined, and measurable. The difference between direction and a goal can be illustrated like this: What’s the difference between a northeast direction on a compass and the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris? The first is just a direction; the second is a specific destination.
Goals Must Be Binary
Another crucial aspect of goal setting is that goals must be binary. In other words, at any given moment, you should be able to answer with a clear “yes” or “no” as to whether you’ve achieved your goal—“maybe” is not an option. You can never say with absolute certainty that you’ve achieved the goal of “making more money,” but you can definitely answer whether you’re standing on top of the Eiffel Tower. Here’s an example of a clear business goal: “My total income for April this year is $5,000 or more.” You can calculate this exactly and know at the end of the month whether you achieved your goal. This level of clarity is necessary for your brain to accept the goal and start actively seeking ways to achieve it.
Detail Your Goals
When setting goals, make them as detailed as possible. Use specific amounts and dates. Make sure every goal is measurable so you can always answer whether you’ve achieved it. Write your goals as if you know exactly how things should turn out. As the saying goes, the best way to predict the future is to create it.
Write Down Your Goals
Your goals must be written down. They should be stated in the present tense and from the first person. An unwritten goal is just a fantasy. When setting goals, focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. Your subconscious can only process a clearly stated, affirmative goal. If you focus on what you don’t want, you’re likely to get exactly what you’re trying to avoid. Write your goals as if they’re already achieved. Instead of “I will earn $30,000 this year,” write “I earn $30,000 this year.” If you phrase your goal in the future tense, you’re telling your subconscious to always keep it in the future, which never arrives. Avoid vague words like “maybe,” “possibly,” “it would be nice,” “I’ll try,” or “I’ll attempt.” These words create doubt about whether you can achieve anything at all. Finally, formulate goals about yourself. You can’t decide for others. For example, instead of “The company that distributes and markets software will launch my product by the end of the year,” write “This year, I sign a contract with a well-known software company that brings me at least $50,000 by year’s end.”
Make Abstract Goals Concrete
What if you need to set a goal that can’t be measured, like increasing your self-discipline? How do you make this goal binary? I use a scale from 1 to 10. For example, if you want to improve your self-discipline, ask yourself, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where am I right now?” Then set a goal to reach a specific number by a certain date. This lets you track your progress and confidently answer whether you’ve achieved your goal.
Goal Setting Is a Conscious Activity
Setting clear goals is not a passive process that happens on its own. You must consciously and consistently put in focused effort to set and clarify your goals. There are no small details or insignificant things here. You’re either moving toward your goals or away from them—there’s no middle ground. If you do nothing or act without clarity, you’ve likely fallen victim to the “aimlessness syndrome.” In other words, you’re diligently working toward someone else’s goals without even realizing it. You’re successfully filling the pockets of your landlord, business owners, advertisers, and so on. Every day spent without clarity about where you’re going is a step backward. If you don’t tend your garden, weeds will grow automatically. Weeds don’t need watering or fertilizer—they just grow unless a careful gardener removes them. Similarly, without awareness and purposeful action, your life and work fill up with the unnecessary and the empty. You don’t have to do anything for this to happen. So, when you decide to seriously look at where you are and where you want to go, start by eliminating the unnecessary and the empty.
Reading this article won’t do you any good unless you take action. Unfortunately, even the most brilliant thoughts yield zero results. In real life, you don’t get paid for your ideas. You might have the most genius idea in the world, but by itself, it’s worthless. Results come not from the idea you have, but from the actions you take to implement it. To get any tangible benefit from an idea, you must take concrete steps to bring it to life: articulate it, give it a finished form, and ensure it’s carried out.
Clarity Is a Choice
If you’re still building your career without focus, just going with the flow, it’s crucial to set aside time to decide and write down exactly what you want to achieve. How long will you keep climbing the ladder of success, only to realize too late that it’s leaning against the wrong building? Choose a specific time frame in the future—six months or five years from now. Take some paper and a pencil, and spend a few hours writing a detailed description of where you want to be at that time. I know many people who aren’t sure where they want to be, so they avoid writing down their goals and plans to “keep their options open.” What do you think the result of that approach is? If you always keep your options open, never settling on one path or making definite decisions, you’ll never move up the career ladder, start your own business, get married, start a family, move to a new home, and so on. And if you do, it will only be because someone else made the decision for you.
A friend of mine behaved this way. His life depended on other people, and he didn’t even realize it. This happened simply because, out of fear of making the wrong choice, he didn’t want to take the time to clarify his own vision. Other people controlled his life by imposing their goals on him, and he accepted it as normal. Ask yourself: are you doing the same? For example, do you have a friend who really wants you to change something in your life—your career, your living situation, etc.—just because they think it’s the perfect option for you? Will they be able to convince you just because, in their opinion, it’s ideal? Or maybe your business partner accepts someone’s proposal that radically changes your plans for the week, and you don’t even stop to think whether it aligns with your goals? People suffer from these problems because they refuse to set their own clear goals. There’s a huge difference between recognizing an opportunity, using it, and following a false path without making any conscious attempt to correct it.
It’s naive to expect inspiration from outside and hope that the perfect result will somehow find you. Making clear decisions doesn’t happen by itself. You’ll have to devote time and effort to this process. If you don’t have clear goals simply because you don’t know what you want, sit down, think, and finally decide. Realizing what you want doesn’t come as a divine revelation. Clarity is a conscious choice, not an accident or a gift from above. It won’t come to you on its own. You have to take steps toward it. If you don’t set goals for yourself, you’re no different from someone who has decided to serve the whims of others.
Clear Goals Make Decision-Making Easier
Reality doesn’t always match our vision exactly. But that’s not the point. The point is that having a vision allows you to make informed decisions that move you toward your goal. When a plane flies a charter route from one point to another, it spends 90% of the time off course. But it’s heading in the right direction and constantly checks and corrects its course. Goal setting works the same way. Keep your list of clarified goals in front of you—not because everything must happen exactly as you wrote, but because it gives you amazing clarity when making decisions about what to do right now. Now, when someone suddenly offers you a “unique opportunity,” you’ll be able to determine whether it’s truly worth pursuing or just a waste of time. Clear strategic vision allows you to make better tactical decisions.
On the way to your goals, you’ll learn new things and adjust your plans. You might even completely change your views after some time and realize it’s not what you really want. It’s much better to set a goal imperfectly than not to set one at all.
Someone once recommended that I end each day by crossing it off the calendar and saying clearly, “There goes another day of my life. It will never come again.” Try this technique. You’ll immediately notice your focus becoming sharper. When you end the day knowing you’d live it the same way even if you could change something, you gain a sense of gratitude that helps you focus on what really matters. If you end the day with regret or a sense of loss, you know you need to take a different approach tomorrow.
From the very first day you set clear and inspiring goals, you’ll notice significant changes in your life, even if your first steps toward them aren’t perfect. You’ll be able to make decisions much faster, understanding whether they move you toward your goal or away from it. Shortly before Walt Disney’s death, a reporter snuck into his bedroom. Walt shared his vision of what Disney World would look like, even though construction was still six years from completion. When Disney World finally opened, a journalist expressed regret that Walt himself couldn’t see it. Walt’s brother Roy replied, “Walt saw Disney World first, that’s why we can see it now.”
Clear goals are the first part of H.L. Hunt’s formula for success. By deciding exactly what you want to achieve, writing your goals down, and reviewing them daily, you allow your vision to become reality by harnessing the power of focus.