When is a compass better than a map?

Maps are great when you have a clear destination.

You’re at Point A and you want to end up at Point B.

Use the map to locate yourself at A and plot a route to get to B.

The destination is a goal - a particular job, more confidence, running a marathon.

Whatever it is, the end result is to have something tomorrow that you don’t have today.

This ability to imagine a possible future for ourselves, resolve to realise it, devise cumulative actions and commit to their completion and so finally achieve it, is a vital human strength.

I see it played out daily in my Coaching work as I observe my clients’ ability to turn thought to intention, intention to action, action to accountability and accountability to achievement.

But.

There are times when destinations, routes and maps can’t help us.

When we can’t settle on a clear destination.

When we have too many competing priorities.

Or when our world is simply too uncertain for concrete plans.

At times like this, we need a tool not to advance towards what we want to happen next but to steer a course around what is happening right now.

If goals and maps are about navigating the future, the compass is what you need to navigate the present.

A compass is not about what you want to have but how you want to be.

It is reframing your priorities from targets to achieve to ways you are.

So ‘running a marathon in six months’ becomes ‘I run’; or ‘I am a runner’.

It is about setting a course not fixing a destination.

A circuitous journey not an efficient route.

Reactive balance not all-in proactivity.

It invites you to focus on harmonising roles; son, sister, employee, hobbyist, companion.

It requires you to say no to everything but the most important priorities in your day-to-day life.

Then be those priorities, day-by-day, one day at a time, navigating by compass.

“The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having fresh eyes.”

The map is new landscape.

The compass is fresh eyes.