Take In The View Before You Set Your Goals

I had a great conversation today with a client who is in his 4^th year at the helm of his organization. He brought about a lot of change in his first three years and really set the organization on a firm foundation toward excellence. He described it as climbing a mountain. He is now standing on the top of the mountain.

Do you know the feeling? You just completed a huge project successfully. You met some really big goals. You overcame challenges to accomplish something worthwhile. And then there is a little sadness. It’s over. Or it seems to be. What do you do with your time and energy now? How do you transition into the next thing?

Back to my client: He is a little uneasy with the calm and the seeming cessation of challenging forward movement. He asks, “What is my job now? I know there are plenty of new goals to set and so much more we could be doing. And yet, it feels like we are still walking the same paths only improving our capacity to reach the summit by degrees.”

So I encouraged him to think about his metaphor. He is now at a plateau with a vista. He can look back down and revisit the journey and the accomplishment. He can acknowledge what he and his team have been able to do. He can also look out and around. This is an opportunity to be still for a while and just notice what is happening around him. What is out there? What new possibilities? What new terrain to traverse?

Do you allow yourself some time and space between action to just notice? What catches your attention? Give yourself just a little more time than feels natural to stop planning and proposing and just watch what might emerge.

Back to my client: We started the conversation about what he is noticing. What seeds of new ideas might be hidden in the discomfort of his stillness. What new perspective he had after his first set of accomplishments. We began to map some possibilities but not too firmly. He is starting to enjoy the exploration. There is more here.

 

How about you…?