“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

“Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.”

Paulo Coelho

I love Paulo Coelho’s book “The Alchemist.” It is one of my favorite reads and another book that I try to read at least once a year. If you haven’t read it is the story of a young shepherd boy who is on a desperate search for a worldly treasure. He keeps his eyes open along the way and pays attention to the many omens that he finds to bring him to the treasure he truly seeks. It is an easy book to read and carries much deeper meaning than what is available at first glance.

What does it mean for you to “concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want?” For me it means clearly answering, with great detail, these questions:

What does success look like? What is it we are trying to achieve? What will it feel like when we get there? How will we know we have achieved our goal? What would prevent us from getting there? These are key questions and ones that cannot afford to be overlooked when planning out our goals. Far too often I find that we have good ideas but don’t put in the effort to clearly define what exactly it is that we are trying to achieve.

For me “keeping your eyes open” is doing the hard work up front to paint a crystal clear vision for yourself of what it is that you want to accomplish. Without this it is just muddy and subject to many detours and deviations along the way. It reminds me of Yogi Berra’s quote, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”