Untitled

As I prepared to write
this piece, a flurry of thoughts were racing through my mind. In an attempt to
fish some of these thoughts and put them into words before they vanish into
oblivion, I popped open my word editor and launched a new document. The file
name on top displayed “Untitled”.

I struggled for a good 20
minutes in an attempt to assign a good title to this piece. I needed to know
how it would look like when I have finished writing it, and what will be the
exact picture? Alas, it was all in vain. I negotiated with myself to begin
writing, explore the work in progress and perhaps discover a title enroute.

Don’t we often fall into
the trap of assigning a title to our lives? When we breed the desire to begin a
new venture, we are flooded with thoughts such as – “where will I be years down
the line” or “will this end up well for me?” or “I still haven’t figured out
exactly how I will go about it!” Very often, these thoughts clutter us so
successfully, that we fail to even begin writing our story. How often do we
give ourselves the opportunity to start with something, explore the work in
progress and then assign a title to our story?

Daymond John, founder of
the apparel retail chain FUBU, waited tables at a restaurant when he had
a desire to create an apparel brand for young men. As he struggled to see how
far and fast his brand would grow, he was selling self-sewn hats for some extra
money. He got an order from America’s leading retailer for $400,000 worth of
products. However, there was a challenge – he had no inventory! Daymond
accepted the order and then began to explore exactly HOW he was going to fulfil
it. Today, FUBU has sold more than $6 Billion worth of products. What
would have happened if he had not begun at all because he did not have a final
picture or a goal or an exact plan in mind?

We often become
disillusioned by “begin with the EXACT goal in mind”. How often do we have an
exact goal before we begin something? How many of us are exactly where we
planned to be 10 years ago? Goals are not stagnant and firm, but like breathing
organisms which keep moving forward as we keep moving towards them. It is more
important to have a direction in which we wish to succeed and begin taking
action along that direction. We can begin to explore, discover a goal and form
the title of our story on the way.

There is a famous story
when a man was passing through a jungle where he found many arrows having hit
the bulls eye on trees. He looked around and found a boy with a bow and arrows.

He congratulated him, “You
are a great archer. All your arrows have hit the bulls eye. Can you show me how
you do it?” The boy blushed and said, “I hit the arrow first and make the
circle later.” Many great people have hit the arrow first, and figured out
their bulls eye later.