Research shows that when people have little information on which to base their decisions, or can’t predict how things are going to turn out, most of us are not very good at taking decisions.
In this time of massive change — when nobody knows for certain how anything is going to turn out — this creates a problem. And it makes it easy for us to get stuck.
We’ve seen that two ways that we can get ourselves unstuck are by learning from people we admire and learning from our past. A third approach is called learning from our future.
One of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is to “Begin with the end in mind.” Peter Drucker, one of the 20th century’s greatest business minds, told us almost exactly the same thing when he said that the first step to achieving any successful outcome is to “Define what finishing well means to you.”
This means it will become much easier for us to move through this time of change if we begin with our ultimate end in mind: if we define what it will take to finish our life well.
To do this, imagine yourself in your final years, looking back at your life. Ask yourself:
“What kind of a life do I want to be able to look back on?”
“What will it take for me to have made good use of my time?”
“What will it take for me to have no regrets?”
“What will it take for me to have lived a worthwhile life?“
If you want to navigate this time of change more easily, do this now. Identify six to eight broad areas or categories of your life that matter to you: things that will determine whether you have lived a worthwhile life, whether you have lived it your way.
Given the amount of change that is happening in the world, it is probably best not to pick specific outcomes. So much change is happening that some achievements might quickly become impossible to achieve while others might become trivial. Instead, define six, seven, or eight broad categories or areas that matter to you (such as ‘work’ or ‘relationships’). This will bring you the flexibility to adapt to a changing world.
It’s your life, it’s your list. So choose the six to eight things that will matter most to you on your deathbed. Your six to eight answers to the questions:
- What does finishing my life well look like, to me?
- What will it take for me to have no regrets?
- What would enable me to look back and feel that I’ve made good use of my time, even if I don’t achieve everything I might want to?
- What will it take for me to have lived a worthwhile life?
(Remember that these don’t have to be your final answers. If you come up with better insights next week or next month you can always update your responses. These are just your best understanding of yourself today, to help you start to navigate a changing world better.)
When you have found your answers there are a couple of ways that you might use them.
First, you might define in detail what you think a perfect outcome looks like in each category (what ’10’ would look like in each case), then create a detailed plan to achieve that. But in a changing world that plan might not last very long. And as you get older your priorities might change.
So a more flexible approach would be to define what you think ’10’ looks like today (for each category) and then decide what your priority actions are — this week, this month, this year — to move from wherever you are now towards those goals. This allows you to remain focused and also flexible, as you and the world change.
And a third approach is simply that whenever you find yourself needing to take a decision, based on little information and without knowing how things are going to turn out, you ask yourself which course of action would best lead you towards whatever a worthwhile life looks like to you. Then you choose that direction.
In a churning world, what matters most is no longer whether or not we achieve particular outcomes. In a churning world, what matters most is that we spend the time we have working on the priorities that matter most to us. If we do that consistently then, no matter how much we actually achieve, we will end up on our death beds having lived our lives our way. We will have lived our lives in line with the purpose and values that matter most to us. We will have become the person we most want to become, given the conditions the rest of the world set for us.
As Steve Jobs put it:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
They say, that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching. There is no reason not to follow your heart. What will it take for you to have lived a worthwhile life?
Adapted from The Churning, Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.
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