Bruce Kasanoff* says getting lots of advice is pointless unless you are prepared to follow through on it.
A client of mine gets asked for advice — a lot of advice. Before he answers, he asks the other person: “What do you want?”
Most people don’t have a good answer.
In this case, my client tells them: “Then it doesn’t matter what advice I give you.”
You probably already know that other people — your boss, spouse, clients, and colleagues — expect you to have at least a basic answer to the question: “What do you want?”
Even a receptionist will ask you a variation of the question by saying: “How may I help you?”
If you’re like most people, you lie.
Most people make up an answer to “what do you want?”
You say: “I want to be happy”, or “I want to get promoted.”
You claim to want to go back to university, or you express an interest in someday living in a warm climate.
Then your behaviour contradicts your answer, and the people who know you best get confused.
You tell your boss that your goal for this year is to be more confident and assertive, but you are still the only person in meetings to raise your hand before you talk.
Here’s what should happen: Your answer to this question should be so clear and vivid that it floods your senses as you drift off to sleep at night.
You should practice seeing yourself as you wish yourself to be.
You should meet and study people who have achieved what you want to achieve. Then you should do the things they do.
Are you doing this? Probably not. You can fool other people, but you can’t fool yourself.
Half-hearted wishing is not going to make you happy, successful, rich, or productive.
The people who wake up with a genius solution go to bed obsessed with a specific problem.
The athletes who end up winning an Olympic competition spend one or two decades dreaming of being on the winner’s podium.
They use those dreams to power intense training.
If you’re frustrated by your lack of traction or progress, the problem probably isn’t a lack of talent or effort on your part.
The problem is that you don’t yet have a good, firm, precise answer to this question:
What do you want?
*Bruce Kasanoff is an executive coach and social media ghostwriter for entrepreneurs. He can be contacted at kasanoff.com.
This article first appeared at kasanoff.com.
