If you can’t define the next level, don’t work on moving up to it
I’m not sure where I heard I heard this little bit of wisdom a very long time ago, but it is one of those things that stuck in my head like a little bit of tissue paper stuck to the bottom of one’s shoe. But in a good way.
It was an exchange between a tennis coach and a player. The coach was frustrated that most tennis players are calculating the next serve in their heads, i.e., where they need to be, where they need to stand, how they need to turn, etc., and as a result, they would often miss the volley on the ball that was being served to them now. And, as you can imagine, how they would return the next serve was moot as it never came.
I read this short blog post by Seth Godin today. Read it now, it’s pretty good. And short.
I think about this often as I hear my clients, my friends, colleagues say “We need to move to the next level.” *sigh*
*Sigh* because I don’t know what that really means and I don’t think they do either. There is always more to do, always better to get, always more money, more clients, more influence, more online friends, more Twitter followers, more, more, more.
And you’ll never get there. And you’ll never play the next serve because you will fail to play the one right in front of you.
If you can’t define the next level, don’t work on moving up to it.
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