The idea of being performant easily comes with the idea of having a vision or a clear objective. One of the better-known ways to address this is to either gain clarity on one’s purpose or, on the other side of the spectrum, to define SMART goals.
But that can lead to an illusion that such clarity needs to exist. Sometimes it simply doesn’t exist. What is present then is the possibility to be driven by a passion, but also to have so many ideas of things that one enjoys or perceives as important that one can’t decide.
It’s a situation in which it is difficult to pin things down to one. And it’s not necessary. Life is also about exploring possibilities. And not knowing can be a starting point. It still requires starting somewhere.
That’s where exploring becomes a method and one everyone is acquainted with.
Sometimes exploring is used with an idea in mind of what one is searching for. And sometimes it’s simply there to try things out and become so involved with them until one knows enough about them to name a priority.
However, one only benefits from exploring, if one finds a way to integrate it into something I’d call one’s global picture. It’s not painted yet, but the exploration adds a stroke to the picture.
Within such an exploration looking at the new picture, and observing how the stroke changed the picture are useful elements to be curious about.
It’s less the work of assessing the result than of determining what has changed. But it’s rarely done and thus why people find themselves astonished about where they ended up.
Setting out with a focus on achieving something specific or on how things should be, makes it hard to be curious about what is being changed.
Setting out with an intention to explore may not have a clear focus and come with a sense of feeling lost. But moving on from there by stepping into the first exploration is like creating an experiment, one that can be repeated until the learning from each of these experiments starts to make a path visible.
By stepping back once in a while to see one’s global picture links and new options become visible.
