Episode 038 - One Degree Off

This is In Brief. Let's get to it. Hey there, and welcome back to the In Brief podcast, where we spend just a few minutes each week, hopefully giving you a new perspective on a new idea that will make your transition or whatever you're going through in this life A little easier. I'm Jordana. I'm CEO of the Recon Network, and this week we're talking about your trajectory. Imagine for a minute that you're standing still, facing in a direction of somewhere you want to go. Now, whatever that place is, is irrelevant. Just imagine that you're looking toward the horizon of where you're going, and that if you start walking straight and stay true, you'll eventually get to the place that you want to be. Now imagine yourself back at that beginning again, standing in those same footsteps, but this time you angle your starting position just slightly. Let's say 1 degree to the left. It's not a big change, right? And for your first few steps, at least, you won't notice much difference. But if you stay true on that course, what are the chances that you'll arrive at your desired destination? I'll tell you, because this isn't a hard math problem and I can actually do it. Zero. And the further away from the goal that you begin, the more you change that starting direction, the less chance you'll have of even being close. And the reason for that is that you're giving your goals or your desired destination a trajectory, a path set on a constant angle. You set it at the right angle, and you'll eventually get there. But you change your direction even by one small degree. And you could end up a world away. James Clear goes into great depth about this topic in his book Atomic Habits, and if you haven't read that yet, I'd add it to your required reading, especially if you're in the transition process yourself. But Clear expands on this idea of trajectory, noting that those small changes that we make, while they may seem insignificant at first, can take us to some vastly different places. It's important to realize how this concept of trajectory plays out in real life because progress on any goal can seem minuscule in the early stages. In fact, it may feel so much like moving nowhere that you're tempted to give up. But if you can keep going and stay true to the path and to your goals, before you know it, you'll be so far down your path that you can't imagine any other way. Sometimes we have to get that momentum behind us. and a few wins in order to really see the differences that have happened over time. But remember, this sword cuts both ways. Getting off track from our goals can also be extremely easy to do, and small changes, no matter how slight the shift, can derail our plans and our goal destination before we even realize it's happening. So it's not so much that results don't matter, it's just that they don't matter as much as Staying on our desired path. As Clear says, you should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results. So don't feel disheartened if your progress seems slow. Embrace the idea that it's about nurturing a process, not getting an immediate result. And if you don't know your direction or have a system in place to get to your destination, then maybe it's time to address that too. Remember, oftentimes it's our habits that make or break us, and small habits have a more substantial power to reshape our lives, especially when put in place and followed religiously, no matter how much progress we actually see on the day-to-day.