What To Do When You Don't Know What You Want

What do you do when you don't know what you want? Hey, this is Brad. And today I've got a slightly different episode. It's just going to be you and me, and I'm not going to be interviewing anybody else. In fact, I want to talk to you about something that's been on my mind lately personally. But it's also came up when I was working with one of my private clients, and she's a very successful entrepreneur and, you know, former executive entrepreneur, and she's achieved a lot in her life, and she's at that point where she just doesn't know really what drives her. And that's one of the nuances to this question, because it's really easy to say, what do you want? And there's a whole lot of things that a lot of people want. But if you've ever had a problem really defining that what do you want? Then this episode's for you. And I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. It's going to be very short, but I'm going to try to make it as impactful for you as it was for her and as it is for me. Because what. What I'm preaching here, I'm also practicing for myself. So there comes a time in a lot of high performers lives, and I consider you a high performer if you're listening to this show, that what you want and what drives you are totally separate, right? I may say I want a yacht, right? But I'm not driven to get up and do what's necessary every day to buy a yacht or a mansion or an exotic car or anything like that. It's nice to have these things. Like, yeah, they'd be nice to have. But do you want it? Do you want it bad enough that you're gonna go get it? Now, for some folks, they have very well defined goals of what they want, etc. And this is really not for them. But this is for those of us who sometimes just get like, that's a hard question to go. I don't know. Especially if you've reached a point where you've gotten pretty much everything you've ever really dreamed about, right? Like, if you look back 10 years, can you imagine? Are you at that point where you can imagine, Like, I couldn't imagine having everything I've got right now, like, what. What's next? Especially if you're trying to reinvent yourself or to go for something else. So. So this is for you and it's for me. So if you've ever struggled with that question, the very first thing I do is I invert it, right? So when I invert, what do I want? That becomes what do I not want or what do I want to avoid, right? If I can't think of what do I want to happen in my life or want to get, I can sure as heck think of the things I don't want to get. You know, in some of those examples, like I don't want to lose money, right? I don't want to have to, you know, my business to fail and have to go get a job. I don't want to have to get up at a certain time. I don't want to work in, in, you know, doing things that I, I just don't like. And you know, I could, I could continue to go on, right? But I don't want, I'm married, right? I, I don't want to get a divorce. I don't want a lot of things that come easier to me than the things that I want. Okay, great. So once you've got your list of things you don't want, now invert them again, flip them back around, and basically reverse those and make sure you don't do those things. Or actually those become your goals, I should say. So I just use a really simple non business example. I said, okay, I don't want to get a divorce. Now personally, I'm in no danger, I hope, of getting a divorce, but let's just say I don't want to get a divorce. Well, what does that mean, I want? Well, the flip side of that was I want a strong, healthy, loving marriage. Okay, well, all right, that's great. Now I may have that and that's cool, I can check that off. But maybe I want to expound on that. Maybe I want it to be, you know, even more exciting or whatever, right? I think you can see where I'm going. But when you flip around and invert what you don't want, it often helps you get a clue to what you actually do want. And it serves as a springboard for other ideas. So I invite you to try that. Now, the next thing has to do with goals. I have always had a very hard time setting life goals and even some business goals. And I'm talking about the big overarching goals for what I want for things that drive me, right? So it's very easy to say, okay, we've got a promotion coming, we got a goal to get this out, or we have to hit a certain revenue number in the business, or we've got to do this, that or the other. And these are kind of like micro, micro goals, like tactical goals in our business or life. Or I may have a goal to lose 10 pounds, etc. Right? But I've always had a very hard time coming up with specific, what they call smart goals. Specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time based goals, right? Like I want to make a million dollars by this time, et cetera, et cetera. Not that might be nice, but will it drive me? And oftentimes it doesn't, right? Or I want to do this type of business, etc. So if you're like me and you have a problem being driven by those kind of goals, get rid of those goals. Make them fuzzy. Actually, instead of, instead of goals, turn them into aspirations. In fact, you may not need a map, right? Goals are like a map. I'm going from San Diego to New York City and that's a map. But in a map doesn't serve. You get a compass, right? So when you get a compass, you first set an aspiration and then you set your direction and then you just get momentum in that direction, right? So when you're setting that compass for yourself, you want to ask yourself, like, first of all, you want to forgive yourself for not having it all figured out and you just need to know that you're going in the right direction, right? So you want to view your work and your life as your compass. Now my compass is set. I've got three things that tell me if I'm on track or off track, right? So these are my aspirations or they what make up my compass, which is I want to be fully engaged and really enjoy what I'm doing. So it doesn't matter what it is. I want to be working in my zone of genius. I want to be in flow and all of these other catchphrases. But. But I just want to make sure I'm doing something I like. So even if I'm making a whole bunch of money, it's something I hate, you know, for a short period of time it might be worth it, but over the long term, no. So that's one, am I doing something I'm really engaged with that uses my genius number two for me, I want to work with people that I really like, love and, or that inspire me to be better. Like, I want to surround myself with amazing people. And those could be clients, those could be team members, obviously friends and family. But when it comes to work, just want to be surrounded by awesome people. I'm a people person. I'm A big extrovert. And that's important to me. So that's part of my compass. And then the last piece, money. I want to make really good money. Now, really good money changes depending on where you're at, right? So right now I'm making really good money compared to where I was 10 years ago and 20 years ago and 30 years ago. Right. So that comes up. But we're never happy with the amount of money we're making, Right. We always want to make more, typically. And I want to make more money, but I want to make really good money, which depends on what I'm doing and what I'm doing. That good money may change if I'm working, if I'm doing something I absolutely love with awesome people and I'm only working a few hours a day, maybe I'm happy with the money I'm making. And maybe I've got, you know, passive income, creating other things, etc. And it's taking care of my expenses. So this is super subjective and it's all up to you. And I'm here to tell you that it's okay to have fuzzy goals. It's okay. It's okay to have aspirations instead of smart goals and understand that your goals are going to change, you're going to change. We all change. Like, I look back who I was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and it's, you know, I've reinvented myself more times than I can count. So the last part is if hopefully this helps and these start to, you know, giving yourself permission to have fuzzy goals and inverting what you don't want to kind of find what you want and setting these aspirations. And then when all else fails, I like to suggest that you approach your life using the design process. Now, maybe you know what that is and maybe you don't. And I don't mean a designer, like a graphic designer who's just got a talent for art. In engineering and product design, there's an actual process. It's like the scientific method, but it's. The design process has basically seven steps. And I think that most people go through life without knowing what these steps are, really are, and how to use them. Right? So I want to cover them real quickly. And I want you to think about how you can use these in your own life. So number one is define the problem. Number two is conduct research. Number three is brainstorm and conceptualize. Number four, create a prototype. Number five, build and market your product. This is like product design, right? Number six, analyze Take a look at it, and then number seven, improve. Let me repeat those. Define the problem, conduct the research, brainstorm and conceptualize, Create a prototype, build and market it, launch it, basically analyze the results and improve it, and then go back to step one. Now, a lot of people, myself included, until I learned this, and still I'm guilty of it. We throw stuff at the wall and we just see if it sticks. But sometimes there's a process that makes it make a lot more sense. And I try to do this with myself. Like I get a pencil and a paper. Actually I get my iPad and my eye pencil or whatever the hell it's called, and I start to map this out and I take my clients through this as well. And once we're done, when you combine this with everything else, it starts to really create something solid. And that usually makes the fog clear. And if you've ever been driving down the road with a foggy windshield and then, you know, you hit the, the defrost button and it starts to blow the hot air and it starts to unclear the windshield or clear it off, you'll know what that's like. And I wanted to share this with you because I think it's one of those questions that gets overlooked a lot, you know, especially on my podcast and you know, in circles where we're just talking about tactics and strategies and do this, don't do this, and we forget to really kind of zoom way out to what do we want, what drives us, what's going to power us through those hard days. And it's okay if you don't know. You're not alone. But it is okay if you don't know when you frustrated and you struggle and you stay there and you don't work on it and try to solve that problem. Now, if you're interested in taking this further, I'd love to hear back from you. If I hosted a workshop, for instance, that went over this in detail with all the same techniques that I just use discussed here, and some more the ones that I use daily, the ones that I share with my private clients, and I took you through the process so that you could have more clarity and less frustrating confusion, would you be interested? I want to know. And I don't have a fancy squeeze page or opt in form or anything for you to follow. There is actually not yet an itinerary or a class set up for this. But what I want to know from you, my listener, is would you be interested if I, if I hosted something like this? And I want you to email me. So if you're still listening, I want you to pull out your phone or get on your computer and email bradaconwrappedbusiness.com and I want you to maybe put in the subject line workshop and let me know you heard this episode and then yeah, you'd be interested in it and I'll follow up personally. I don't care if I get a thousand replies personally, you know, myself, my assistant will do it, but I'd love to hear from you. Is this something that you would be interested in? And if it's not, but you enjoyed this anyway, that's great. Feel free to leave a review on itunes or Apple Podcasts, whatever the hell they're calling it right now, or just reach out to me and let me know that this has impacted you in one way or another. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I hope you stay tuned for the next one. Talk to you soon.