If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going, Any Road Will Get You There

Photo by Harry Cunningham on Unsplash

Many people are having questions about the future right now, wondering where all this is going. Both individually and collectively.

I wanted to share a personal experience and 10 insights that helped me regain my sense of direction.

The crisis, like for many others, very much impacted my business. I felt troubled by the situation at the beginning and really didn’t know for a few months how to deal with it. Of course, I increased my online activities and all that. But that was nothing new, as I had been working like that for years already. I adapted, kept moving, stayed in action but felt I was getting more and more tired, and somehow demotivated. I was not in flow. Something didn’t feel right in the way I was moving and dealing with the business, but I couldn’t say what.

So I started to search for the reason for my discomfort. I slowed down. Listened more. Looked inside and around me…

And then I saw it: my reference point for my actions in this time of crisis was everything I knew from my past activities that I wanted to keep and adapt. Not what I wanted to create for the future! I changed the form but not the purpose and the energy of it. I thought I was acting in the present moment towards the future and didn’t notice I was still carrying with me elements of the past that didn’t want to stay. That was holding me back.

I was shocked when I saw that! No wonder I felt so uncomfortable.

I had to let go completely of my ideas of how things should be in order to be able to really see how things want to be and move on.

I understood the crisis was an opportunity to recenter my activities, my attention and my intention. To (re)focus on what I really want and what the future is calling me to do.

And this is where the even more tricky part started…

How do I know where to go from there? How do I know the direction?

Nobody knows what the pandemic is leading to, what our lives and the world will look like after all this is over, whenever and however it will be over. Nobody knows the future and still we need to keep moving.

But there are 10 things I saw that are guiding me on my way forward. Maybe some of this can help you as well:

1. There is no such thing as a future. There are only made up projections we make about the “future”. What there is: an intention, a calling, a dream, a wanting, the next steps and a bunch of thoughts... Remembering that was important for me.
2. The future is actually the sum of all present moments to come and the current ideas I have about them. And the more I drive myself crazy about those ideas, the more I ruin my present and tighten the space of possibilities. Knowing that I can do something now that could influence the future present moments. The present moment and the future present moments are connected. I can create my path taking one step after another.
3. There is a difference between an exploration and an expedition. When I heard this the first time from one of my mentors I started laughing lout! An expedition needs a lot of preparation, analysis, planning etc.. An expedition is heavy stuff and takes a long time to come to life. An exploration is lighter and quicker, allows more try and error, needs reactive creativity and adaptation along the way. I decided to go on an exploration.
4. There is a kind of natural trajectory for our life, our actions and our business. A natural movement that started with our actions in the past and is pushed forward by the energy of life. In my perception, it is a curve, not a line. When I stay still for a moment, I feel it. I feel I am already going somewhere even if I don’t see this “somewhere” yet. I may or may not like the trajectory, but there is one. To put my attention on it for a moment and sense it helps me take the actions now that can either reinforce the curve that I am sensing, giving it more power, or change the direction of the trajectory. This is the power of our free will.
5. Our heads don’t always know where to go, but our wisdom does. Wisdom is a deeper Knowing that has more information than our heads. It has an all-round connectedness with everything inside and outside us. To connect with my wisdom helped me find my way. A strong intention is guided by wisdom.
6. I don’t need to create an artificial clear picture of the future in my head to go somewhere. -But I can if I want to, as long as it stays enjoyable and I don’t attach my happiness and wellbeing to the realization of this one particular picture only!. We need to sense the direction and feel the intention. It can be a dream, a world of possibilities, a picture, something that makes us smile and inspires us without making us feel needy. And then we naturally start moving, acting, planing and doing whatever needs to be done. This is how wisdom guided my movements.
7. I need to slow down to be able to speed up. That sounds like a paradox but it’s not. They don’t happen at the same time! When I am running at high speed, and something doesn’t feel right, I need to slow down, or even stop. When we slow down, we get almost a 360 perception of situations. We sense them. We see more. We gather broader information. When we speed up, we are in action. Our view narrows down to a particular objective. We are focused, don’t look right and left. That’s why I alternate now between slowing down and speeding up. To make sure I am not running in any direction. But it is also ok if I do!
8. Sometimes my head and my wisdom don’t agree. Do you know this experience? When your head wants something, but everything else in you wants to go somewhere else? Or when life doesn’t want to go where your head wants to go? It’s usually a sign to step back for a moment. In my life, it was often more useful to follow my wisdom than my head. But sometimes my head is a bit stubborn and doesn’t let itself be lead so easily. Then that’s just the way it is. My wisdom is then wise enough to wait and catch up later.
9. Life also has something to say about our future. It’s not all up to us and certainly not all about us! There is a huge difference when I feel I am in service of life or when my head wants to use life in service of the little me. It really feels different. Follow the feeling. It is one of the ways wisdom connects with life and communicates with us to show us the way.
10. And last but not least: I know it feels different sometimes but we can’t get it wrong! We don’t always have to know where we are going. It is ok not to know. We live, we move, we stay, we look, we wait, we move again, we all always go somewhere. It’s all part of the game of life anyway. -But I will explore this subject deeper in another post.

With Love, Drissia

www.dsh-internationalhr.com / https://soundcloud.com/leadershipbackstage

www.dsh-transformative.com / https://soundcloud.com/transformativecoaching

If you would like to learn more about how to navigate the experience of Life and Leadership with more grace and wisdom you may want to attend one of these online events with me or just contact me: https://www.eventbrite.de/o/drissia-schroeder-hohenwarth-30445146584

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By the way, the real quote from Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland is:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”