Why should you care about this thing called Clarity? Because the more accurate your view of the world and the more accurate your understanding of yourself, the more effective and successful you can become. Achieving Clarity isn't for everybody - and that's your competitive advantage. Most people that want to be leaders won't pay the price to get high levels of Clarity.
My most recent battle with clarity is going on right now - with myself, as I try to get my goals for 2007 down to the action level. You know, those dreams that you want to see come true - but to have that happen, you gotta act. And as you translate dreams to goals to action, it gets kind of fuzzy. And fuzzy is the enemy of success.
I go through this exercise much more often than I would like to admit. Wouldn't it be just great to be able to just go for it? To act!!
But to act without clarity and purpose is, most often, futile. One of the things I know about myself is that I have to know where I want to go in order to get there. That's my External Clarity - how clearly I see where I am going. The more clearly I see my goals and dreams and how to get there, the better the chances that I will succeed.
But our External Clarity has a powerful partner - our Internal Clarity. The Clarity that has to do with how clearly we see ourselves. This is the arena of self esteem, confidence, introspection and extroversion - the place where we feel worthy and able - or not. This is the realm of self talk - how we view others, our expectations of our own performance and the performance of others, our willingness to take risk and to believe in our abilities - the place where optimism or pessimism or a combination of both reside. This is where we are critical of ourselves - or not. Our perceptions and beliefs in ourselves reside here. What's interesting is that some of the most successful people I have ever worked with don't think highly of their own worth and ability, but they have taken that as a challenge and worked hard to meet tough goals and to take risks and opportunities to prove their worth and ability. Others with low regard for themselves stay safe, don't put themselves at risk and are satisfied with much less than their real capabilities would have allowed them to achieve. Others are so optimistic and think so highly of themselves - the " He/she is a legend in their own mind" people, that they often fail because they are incapable of imagining any downside to whatever they do.
How you achieve a high level of Clarity is a very personal matter - the advantage to taking the time and effort to reach a clear picture of the world outside yourself along with a clear picture of your inner world is that it gives you tremendous leverage and competitive advantage. Knowing who you - are the good, the bad and the ugly - is the first step to success.
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