Focus by direction

The problem: You have difficulties identifying your personal goals.
Life hacking blogs and coaches often mention that it is important to define the personal goals. Defining goals makes it easier to find the proper priorities and focus on the things and actions that bring you forward to your goals. They say, you need concrete goals also to know when you have achieved them. But some people have difficulties in finding and defining personal goals.

The reason: Not always in your life you can have a clear vision of your future.
Not in every stages of your life you can know what your goals are. There are periods in which bigger changes are in view and you cannot yet know the effects in detail (eg change of your working place, marriage, birth of a child, ...). At certain points in your life you can only do approximately plans. Depending on your general life style and profession you are probably more often facing uncertain future. In my profession for example - the IT - things change so fast that it is very difficult for me to define particular clear long term goals. I could define very concrete goals but it would necessarily lead to the demand of changing the goal more often. In certain situations when thinking that defining a goal is necessary I produce more troubles for myself as I would without such a definition.

The solution: Choose a direction to get focus.
If you cannot find a proper particular goal you feel comfortable with then consider choosing a direction only being sufficient for your needs. It is not always necessary to know your goals very concrete and in detail - quite the contrary - it sometimes is even counter productive to have a too clear picture of a desired situation. It might produce suffering if the goal seems to be not reachable or if you discover - once arrived - that you are not as content as you expected. You might discover that all the effort and the privations were not worth it. Take into consideration that you may find out - while on the way to your destination - that you would be happier with a slightly changed goal arriving somewhere in the area of your original goal but not exactly where you have planned to arrive. Starting with a direction is better than starting with nothing. It might cause the focus that is sufficient separating the important from the irrelevant things. Getting nearer and clearer there will be time to specify the goals more detailed.

Related posts: Focus by decision, Direction over goals, Principles over rules, Razor sharp focus, New year decisions, The golden rule.