What's Your Next Move

This month’s articles have been about being purposeful in life, how to find purpose and the various elements to becoming who you are. So, the final article this month again seems very fitting to that theme, Understanding the Right Next Move.

You see, as you begin to understand your purpose, and as you begin to live that out, the purpose drives every part of your life naturally, you will begin to navigate your way through life instinctively in ways you have never known, you will know what move to make and when, and how. You will be able to display just the right amount of ego for every situation, and when you forget to keep it check you will have the right people in your circle that can tell you as I wrote back in January about the 4 influences, we all need.

But the kind of moves we are talking about in this article are the things you do that take you towards your goals, like when to put extra work in, take an employee on, go out to meet people, to just stop and have a break and even things that will bring clients to you. We live in a world where Burger King says, ‘have it your way’, where credit cards say, we can have anything now. But if you want to be truly successful, whether that means having a business, a brand, then the BK and credit card concept can’t ride, the 2020 pandemic showed that. We saw so many businesses big and small closed down because they had not made the right moves early on to sustain themselves when there was nothing.

By understanding the right next move, you can build your business and your dreams in a sustainable way. Not every move will follow the last move straight away, not everything will come at once. It’s like chess, you move then you have to wait for your opponent to move before you can move again.

In my article about Time Management in January I said that you need to take your time, have faith in what you’re doing, you will be mocked, you will be ridiculed, but if what you are doing is right, then everything will fall into place and happen, probably better than you ever expect. But that can only happen when you move at the right time, in the right way, because you understand what impact each move will have.

Whether you are building a dream or an empire you need to make a series of strategic moves, some of these will be small and quiet that could easily be missed by your audience which is sometimes the idea, others will be loud and will attract a lot of attention. Have you ever watched someone’s progress, it either looks like they are doing it wrong or they are just being slow in their approach so maybe you lapse in your observations, then then all of a sudden bam, they hit success and in awe you feel like you missed something? You probably did, but that is because not everyone needs to know about every move, not everyone is interested in progress. We only see what we want, interpret things in a way that we understand life and above that everyone is an individual and unique and will not necessarily take the same journey to achieve success.

Think of it as being the magician or the illusionist of your life. A good movie to watch to understand this concept is the franchise ‘Now you see me’. Remember you are in control of your life and the destiny you seek, not everyone needs to know everything about how you got what you wanted, the magician won’t tell you how he tricked you or how the illusion was done. And by the way this is not about manipulation, that is another level. Its about creating a catalyst for curiosity that will allow others to make their own mind up about their involvement.

So, let’s break this down further to understand what the next right move is and what it is about. You need to know the ultimate outcome from the outset. However, you do need to be aware that on rare occasions you may need a plan b, not often just something to be aware of. So, once you know the final outcome or thing you want to happen then begin to break the journey into smaller components to be achieved.

Each of those components will require you to make some kind of move that will take you towards your desired outcome. Remember some moves will require big mouths, some will require a circle of trusted in deal with the move. Some may be about trying to get someone to quieten down, others will be about making people make a lot of noise. Some will be spread truth or create rumours, please note that for purpose of this article, the difference between a rumour and lie is that rumour is started by someone else not having the full facts or by others who want would prefer to see you fail, and a lie is when it comes directly from yourself.

Now you need to create a measure as well as a time frame. How are you going to know when the other party has moved in the way you need them move to make progress. How long are you going to give them, bearing in mind that you can’t control those around you and the time you are waiting you should fill doing other things. Where possible be creative in your approach, know how best the people around you can help, the loud months, the secret keepers and those who have certain job skills that be useful. Remember you don’t always have to explain details, like the whys or what you need to achieve, most are happy to help (even without knowing what they are helping with), sometimes you can start something using an everyday conversation, don’t forget the power of social media or newspapers.

The hardest part about understanding moves is timing, getting the timing the right for the best impact is down to practise and sometimes trial and error. It’s also about how comprehensive you are with the information you are sharing. People can be unpredictable; the human condition has the ability to surprise others. Your impact may have a better-than-expected result or no results at all.

Whatever it is in life that you are after, sometime the better approach is the indirect one, it means that those around you have time to think about the things you are doing, they are able to see how it will be benefit them and if they want to buy in to the idea. But ultimately you must know when to let go, you must know when to stop and when it expires, its important you know when the end is, when you need to take stock and do something else.