Clarity Of Thought—Your Path To Becoming Exceptional

The highest achievers in the world are different from the rest. They walk with purpose and maintain eye contact when they speak. But most importantly, they are different because they have an unmistakable of clarity of purpose. They have a vivid picture of precisely what they want to achieve. And not only do they have crystal clear goals, but they also genuinely believe they can achieve them. There is no wavering from their goals for them.

At the age of 15, Arnold Schwarzenegger already had a clear vision in his mind about what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to become the world's greatest bodybuilder. As stated in his autobiography, it was more than the pipe dreams young boys often have, wanting to become firefighters or detectives. Even though he had just started lifting weights, he believed that he would become the greatest bodybuilder in the world. And after that, he would go to America and become a movie star.

Even though bodybuilding may have been an unusual career choice for an Austrian teenager in the early 1960s, there was no waffling in his mind. He possessed a rare level of clarity that allowed him to spend his youth working to realize his dream. There were no conflicting ideas or plan B in case a bodybuilding career did not work out. When you are ultra-focused on a single outcome, no hardships along the way can stop you; you keep going till you get there.

Schwarzenegger is not alone. Clarity of purpose is a trait shared by everyone who has achieved something extraordinary. Name your favorite athlete, artist, or business icon, and the chances are high that they have had a clear and uncluttered image of what they wanted out of their lives.

When you have clarity, you build an unwavering focus on achieving a single vision. And when you are clear and committed to a goal, good things happen to help you realize it. As the adage goes, when you genuinely want something, the universe conspires to help you achieve it. You will see ideas and solutions everywhere, even when you least expect them. On the other hand, a lack of clarity results in confusion, frustration, poor performance, and efforts that go nowhere. How can you get anywhere when you're not sure where you are going?

Benefits of Clarity

Clarity gives you direction and purpose. Without it, your thoughts are ambiguous, and your mind flits from one thing to the next and drifts aimlessly. If you cannot commit to the path you want to take, you become directionless.

Clarity eliminates indecisiveness. Indecision is the most significant deterrent to progress. Indecision is far worse than making mistakes or making wrong decisions. Even with complete clarity, you will likely make mistakes and wrong choices, but since you know exactly where you are headed, you will learn to experiment and try new things until you eventually get there.

Clarity lets you communicate effectively. If your mind is unclear and your ideas are jumbled, you cannot share a clear and convincing vision, and no one will believe you. Clarity instills trust.

Quite simply, people who have a clear mind outperform those who don't.

How To Improve Clarity Of Thought:

There is no magical way to attain clarity; you gain it the same way you achieve anything else - with effort and diligence. The first step is to decide what you want to achieve and ensure that your goal is realistic and fits in with your natural skills and abilities. Once you set a clear target, will your mind to remove conflicting thoughts and ideas by eliminating any Plan B or alternative things you can do. You will need to go after Plan A at all costs and without hesitation. Be persistent and remove thoughts of failure. While having a Plan B may appear prudent, creating alternatives will always pull you back from achieving what you genuinely desire.

Whatever you want to achieve, whether it is becoming a bodybuilder like Arnold Schwarzenegger, a basketball star like Kobe Bryant, a business leader like Steve Jobs, or a singer like Ed Sheeran, remember that you don't need to have the perfect plan. But you need to know precisely what you want. All the people listed above, extraordinary in their fields, started with a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve and blocked off all competing thoughts.

No exceptional achiever knows how they will get there. They only know where they are going and have zero hesitation in their mind. So if you want to achieve something extraordinary, pick your vision and go for it. You can experiment and try different things that take you forward, but staying with it is the only way to get there. Spend time in the gym, the track, the field, the lab, writing code, playing an instrument or doing whatever you should be doing. If you focus on that, everything else will fall in place. The more you persist, the clearer your mind will be.

By Kumar Mehta, Contributor