Drift is the natural order of life. If you take your hands off the steering wheel, your car will naturally drift across the lane or into a ditch. When you abandon your schedule for spontaneity and flexibility, you’ll drift into undisciplined habits that waste lots of time. When you spend money with no limits or boundaries, you’ll drift into debt (or even bankruptcy).
Drift rarely ends well. There’s usually a price to pay, an unintended consequence, or at the very least, regret. And yet, we’re ultimately in control of how much or how far we drift. It’s our choice. So, what does it take to avoid personal and organizational drift? How do we resist the lure toward laziness and the lie that we can accomplish everything? Three keys are essential. Together, they will significantly reduce the drift in your life and leadership.
1. Clarify Your Target
The only way to know whether or not you’re drifting is to have something to drift from. Simply put, you need a clear target, personally and organizationally, to serve as your true north. Unclear targets make drifting feel normal. After all, if the target isn’t defined, whatever you see through the front windshield of your life will always seem right (at least in the moment). Until you gain clarity, you’ll never know what adjustments to make when you experience turbulence along the way.
A good way to clarify your target is to ask yourself four questions. First, what vision do I aspire to fulfill? This is the big picture dream. Second, what goals do I want to achieve? This takes your vision and breaks it into manageable, attainable pieces. Third, what habits do I want to develop? Habits ensure that you are living with a sustainable, health-producing system for your life. And fourth, what values do I want to model? Without values, you’ll take short-cuts to achieve your vision and goals. When you define your vision, goals, habits, and values, you define the targets that are most important to you. Without this clarity, your life will feel like a giant blur.
2. Practice Disciplined Focus
Gaining clarity is usually easier than maintaining clarity. The constant stream of information, ideas, and opportunities can pull you off mission quickly. Whether it’s the latest trend or a shiny new object, it’s quite easy to slip into the undisciplined pursuit of more. Author Jim Collins describes this undisciplined behavior as “overreaching,” and it’s one reason organizations fail.
Overreaching begins when an organization’s leaders allow their pride and previous success to cause them to overestimate what they’re capable of doing. As HP co-founder David Packard once observed, “a great company is more likely to die of indigestion from too much opportunity than starvation from too little.” And Collins goes on to say, “When an organization grows beyond its ability to fill its key seats with the right people, it has set itself up for a fall. Although complacency and resistance to change remain dangers to any successful enterprise, overreaching better captures how the mighty fall.”
The antidote to overreaching is disciplined focus. This is especially important in a world where the menu of distractions grows longer by the second. And if focus is a continual nemesis in your life and leadership, the third point will be especially important for you.
3. Create Intentional Guardrails
When you drive down a windy mountain road, there are usually guardrails to keep you from flying off the edge of the road. Similarly, we need guardrails personally and organizationally to keep us from drifting into the danger zone. Guardrails can include schedules, accountability systems, budgets, evaluation questions, processes for assessing new product or service ideas, and personal relationships (with close friends, family members, coaches, and consultants) that will keep us focused and engaged.
It’s easy not to care about a guardrail, until you need it. That’s why you have to identify and establish the guardrails early in the journey. And it’s usually wise to get the advice of trusted leaders who have more experience, wisdom, and perspective than you do. They’ve been down the road, and they already know what curves are waiting ahead for you.
Let’s put the three keys together. Your target gives you direction. It defines success for you. When you start to drift, it shows you what to steer back to. Disciplined focus gives you concentration. In other words, it helps you resist the temptation to overreach and wander into the undisciplined pursuit of more. And Intentional Guardrails give you protection. They help you outsmart your weaknesses before your weaknesses show up. To activate these three steps in your life, begin with the following:
- Answer the four questions above (vision, goals, habits, and values) to help you clarify your target. This will require some time away from daily distractions and interruptions.
- Sit down with your core leaders to determine where the organization lacks disciplined focus. Then make the tough decisions about what to cut so that you can engage in the disciplined pursuit of less. In your personal life, talk to your spouse or a close friend, and give them freedom to tell you how you’re overreaching and overstretched. Then make the adjustments to help you refocus on what matters most.
- Work with your key leaders (and your spouse at home or a close friend ) to identify the guardrails that will keep you and the organization out of the danger zone. The guardrails need to be extremely practical.
Drift will always be a battle. There’s so many interruptions and disruptions, and focus is becoming increasingly harder to find and maintain. These three steps will get you started in the right direction.
