Achieving your personal and professional goals requires clearly understanding what you want and how to accomplish it. Clarity is the key to making informed decisions, staying focused, and motivated towards achieving your goals.

In this article, I discuss the essential elements of clarity, including vision, values, strengths, and goals, and how they can help you gain a sense of purpose and direction. We will also explore how having a clear purpose and vision can motivate you to follow through with your goals.

Vision

Clarity and vision are sometimes used interchangeably in specific industries, particularly those that deal with self or home improvement, such as decluttering. Still, they are slightly different when you want to tackle a big dream or goal, such as simplifying your life, living with intention, or starting a new career.

Your vision informs the decision-making process and criteria, which helps narrow the scope, remove some overwhelm, and ensure you stay motivated and focused. Your vision can help with direction and include things like how you want to feel, what something will look like, or the purpose of a task or space.

So, vision helps with clarity. But vision is not clarity. A vision supports your clarity. For true clarity, you need more; you must also know your values, strengths, and why or purpose.

Values

Values play a crucial role in bringing clarity to an individual's life. Knowing what you value means better understanding what is important to you, which can help you make more informed decisions. Values can lead to a greater sense of purpose and direction in life and a feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction.

On the other hand, when your values and strengths are unclear, it can be challenging to make decisions and feel lost or unfulfilled. Identifying and understanding your values and strengths can bring clarity to your life, enabling you to make better, more informed decisions and take actions that align with your values.

Strengths

A clear understanding of your strengths is also essential to success in your career and personal life. Knowing your strengths means being aware of your natural talents, skills, and abilities and recognising the tasks and activities you are good at and enjoy doing. By identifying your strengths, you can make informed decisions about the kind of work you want to pursue, the roles you want to take on, and the tasks you want to focus on. Plus, when you know and embrace your strengths, you are more likely to achieve the ultimate goal of being paid to be you.

Clarity needed for goals

Clarity is essential when setting goals. As I’ve seen with many clients over the years, a lack of clarity can significantly contribute to why many of us need help achieving specific goals. Whether it is changing a long-held habit, improving your creativity, or something larger, like advancing in your career, improving physical health, building better relationships, or flourishing in your career and life, it is important to clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to accomplish it. Clarity helps establish a clear path forward and makes staying focused and motivated towards achieving your goals easier.

Let’s explore with an example. Recently, a client approached me and asked whether I would support her as an accountability coach. (Accountability is one of the things as a career and life coach I help people with). She then said she wanted to develop a daily habit of running. When I asked her what her "why" was, that is, what the purpose of developing this habit was, she couldn’t tell me. The best she could come up with was, "I saw on Instagram that my friend was doing a daily run, and it seemed like a good idea."

As a coach, I don't judge; if that was a motivating reason for her, that's great. However, she had engaged me as an accountability coach because this "why" was not motivating. She was not feeling inspired and believed she needed help making running a daily habit. As a result, she was developing decision fatigue. Whenever she thought about getting out of bed to run, she needed to make multiple decisions: Do I get out of bed today? Will I get my running clothes on? Will I go for a run? Every small decision built up until she was exhausted and decided to stay in bed.

Know your Purpose + Vision.

The above example is simple, but the logic applies to anything we wish to do. Without a clear purpose or why, we can lack the motivation to follow through.

As the example illustrates, depending on the nature of the goal, having a tangible end outcome or at least an idea of what you want to achieve is enormously beneficial. As Stephen Covey shared in the classic personal and professional development book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, "Begin with the end in mind." By utilising this approach, you help eliminate many of the decisions required to achieve your goal.

Now, this is where the vision part applies.

When we have clarity of vision, a granular, detailed and specific vision of what we want to achieve, that is, the outcome we are striving toward, we are motivated.

In the example I shared above, if my client had indicated she wanted to be able to run five kilometres, that would have given greater clarity. She could imagine how great it would feel when she crossed the finish line at the five-kilometre mark in the run to build on that vision. She could imagine how she would feel in her body, what it would look like, and how she would celebrate at the end. By getting this level of specificity, she would get attached to the outcome in her mind, which would then build motivation. She would feel vested in the result, which would assist with motivating her to get out of bed for that morning run.

This level of clarity regarding the end outcome applies to all changes we desire to make in our lives. We need to imagine and visualise how we want to feel, what the changes will look like, and how we will celebrate when we achieve it!

Clarity without a vision

The concept of a vision may be uncomfortable for you or, due to your season of life, feel too hard right now. Never fear; we can move towards greater clarity without having an overarching vision.

Here are five suggestions for increasing your clarity without a big-picture vision.

Take a break and clear your mind. Some options are meditation, getting outdoors into nature, taking a walk, or engaging in a relaxing activity.
Ask yourself questions. Here are six to get you started.
Seek input from others with experience or expertise in the area where you seek clarity. A friend, family member or professional coach (that’s me!) can all assist by listening and asking probing questions to help your process.
Write down your thoughts and ideas to better understand them. As a mentor of mine once told me, ‘Write to feel right’. Journaling can help. These prompts will get you started if you’re unsure where to begin with journalling.
Imagine meeting your future self. But, if you’re unsure whether the ‘future self’ idea will work for you, you might prefer to consider living your ending now for a similar but slightly different approach for gaining clarity.

Clarity is paramount for achieving success in all aspects of life. Whether setting personal objectives, pursuing career goals, or bringing about lifestyle changes, clearly understanding your values, strengths, and purpose can help you stay focused, motivated, and confident. Setting a well-defined vision and charting a clear path forward can help you overcome indecisiveness and move towards your goals with purpose and intention. Remember, gaining clarity is not a one-time achievement but a continuous process that requires constant reflection, assessment, and adjustment. So, here’s to working towards greater clarity and living a fulfilling and purposeful life.

More Support

The practical approaches presented here can provide greater clarity in your personal and professional life, but sometimes, a more tailored, custom approach is required. And that’s where working with a coach (that’s me!) comes in. With one-on-one individual support, coaching can make all the difference when you want to feel clear and confident in your career and life.

A Clarity Kickstart is ideal if you want to learn about and explore your strengths, weigh up options, try to make a decision or want accountability to support you in moving into action. After this powerful coaching experience, you’ll have a clear way forward to address the key issue you are currently stuck on – no more second-guessing yourself! You will have greater clarity and, as a result, feel confident in yourself and your decisions, knowing that ‘you’ve got this’. And be inspired to move forward in your life on your own terms, with clarity, confidence and calm.

Learn more about a Clarity Kickstart