We are all operating in unfamiliar territory. Instead of speaking at events and meeting with clients, I am speaking into webcams and managing video conferencing fatigue. Face-to-face water cooler weekend stories are replaced with an email’s niceties — “hope you had a good weekend”, “hope you are well”, and “just checking in.” Though these may be minor adjustments to my work routine, the global pandemic has created a massive upheaval that continues to shape our personal and professional lives. COVID-19 has derailed plans. It has caused fear, anxiety, and doubt. Now, more than ever, when we feel buried in the volatility of our economic and political environment, the monotony of the remote workday, and the persistence of uncertainty, we must look beyond the present and define our paths forward.
Thomas S. Monson’s assertion that “decisions determine our destiny” has guided me through life (and this past year’s) precarious nature.[i] While we may not have power over future circumstances, the choices we make today set us up for success. The results of our decisions compound, forging the path for the future.
For example, in isolation the act of a bad habit is not usually detrimental or impactful enough to redirect our paths. Consciously eating fast food every now and again will not ruin your healthy diet. However, eating fast food repeatedly, consistently choosing fried over fresh, may lead you in an undesirable direction. You may not see immediate consequences from these choices, but our habits have a snowball effect that can be difficult to reverse.
The lives we live today are the result of our decisions 1, 2, 5, and 10 years ago. I work with many businesses that struggle to grasp the long-term implications of impulsive decision-making. For example, I came into a business on the brink of insolvency because the company’s founder was compulsively stripping cash out of his business. While he didn’t notice the immediate impact of $5,000 here for a vacation or $30,000 there for a new car, his reliance on the excess cash ultimately put the business at risk. When visualizing the compounding effect of our decisions, consider a penny. If you double a penny every day for one month, at the end of the month, you will have $10.7 million.
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Our day-to-day decisions define our behavior, shape our patterns, and ultimately dictate our results. Therefore, creating a thoughtful strategy is key to future success. While we must balance living in the moment with having foresight, willpower, tenacity, and resilience is built from making decisions proactively and sticking to them. As we navigate through unchartered waters, we have an opportunity to take a step back, examine where we are headed, and determine where we want to go.
- Clarify your purpose to build a vision for the future. Reflect on the reasons for your existence. What are you passionate about? What is your conviction behind the cause? If you have already defined your purpose, stay true to it.
- Turn off the noise and have faith. More than ever, we are bombarded with media and negative talk. Tuning out, even temporarily, will allow you to deepen your purpose and think about what you want the future to look like. I will often do a technology detox over the course of a week to allow myself to think and meditate about my vision. You can center yourself by reflecting on a long walk and thinking about your goals, what you have achieved, and whether your achievements are meaningful and in alignment with your life’s purpose.
- Focus on value. In business, value is derived from providing an outstanding customer experience. During this time, it is important to assess our organizational advantages and activities and understand the ways we drive differentiation. Fostering people-centricity in our approaches and strategies leads to continuous innovation and therefore long-term resilience.
- Shift your timeline. Many built strategies for 2020 that are no longer relevant or perfectly on-track. It’s important to accept what is out of our control. Be patient, give yourself and your company some buffer, and accept that shifting timelines is okay and necessary.
- Give your strategy the same attention and rigor as daily operations. Eighty percent of executive leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy. Fifty percent spend no time at all.[i] As business leaders and entrepreneurs, we are responsible for changing this statistic and building strong, future-oriented businesses. If daily operations sap our energy, we will run into serious problems in the future. We must step away from the chaos of operations and take the time necessary to plan for our future.
Overall, be deliberate and mindful in the life you build for yourself. If we are not intentional in building the life or business that we want, the world or circumstances will shape them for us. Grounding ourselves in our purpose and goals will help us create clarity out of uncertainty and make decisions that prepare us for the futures we desire.
[1] Elder Thomas S. Monson, “Decisions Determine Destiny,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, November 1979, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/1979/11/decisions-determine-destiny?lang=eng.
[1] Michael Mankins, “Stop Wasting Valuable Time,” Harvard Business Review, September 2004, https://hbr.org/2004/09/stop-wasting-valuable-time.
