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.