Do You Really Know Where You're Going

Most of the entrepreneurs I talk to have no shortage of ideas about what to do next. There’s a post to write, a program to build, a page to rewrite, a new platform to try, and each of them sounds perfectly reasonable. The trouble is that when you have no clear anchor, every strategy feels equally valid and equally suspect, so you end up choosing in the dark.

When you have no clear anchor, every strategy feels equally valid and equally suspect.

That’s why so many of us have things we started and never finished, like a course that’s almost ready, a book that's mostly written, or a project we couldn’t stop talking about last month and then forgot about. Without something to tell us which direction is worth the effort, it’s easy to keep starting and hard to keep going.

The foundation underneath every strategy is your mission and your vision. They tell you which strategies are worth your time, what to say, and who you’re saying it to, so that everything you say and build has a purpose behind it.

Because it’s so fundamental, I created a workbook focused only on that: Where the Spotlight Belongs, now on Amazon. Even if it’s the only thing you ever do, I believe it will make a real difference to your work, because it gives you a compass for all your decisions.

Here is one of the questions from it, and I’d love for you to try it right now, with a pen or on your phone:

What are your clients able to do after working with you? And what does that open the door to in their life?

Frankly, most people can answer the first half because it describes the result. The second half takes longer, and it’s usually where your mission is hiding. (If you answer both, notice which one makes you sit up and smile.) That second answer is what you’re really offering, and it gives your posts, your conversations and your offers something to point at.

If you’d like to work on that question with company, or you have something that’s almost finished and needs a little push, join us for co-working tomorrow, Wednesday October 21st from 11am to 1pm ET. It’s part of the Magnet Hub, a free community for mission-driven entrepreneurs, where you’ll find monthly co-working and other ways to build your business in line with your mission and vision, including a monthly Round Table where you can bring any question. You can join the Magnet Hub for free here. (You can also learn more about it here)

What would it open the door to for you, if your mission were as clear as you wanted it to be?

P.S. The advance copies of my business novel, The Mastermind, went out to my launch team yesterday, and you can still join if you’d like one (just DM me)