Direction not intention determines your destination.

Andy Stanley

Life Changers: Derek McCloud – Direction Determines Your Destination

I’ve always been a person who wrote down goals, some were grand and some were small.  However, it seemed as if I had hardly achieved any of them when I looked back over my journal’s scribblings over the years.  I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong because I considered myself both ambitious and hard-working.

I came across a book by Andy Stanley that said, “Direction, not intention, determines your destination,” and this really helped me have a paradigm shift.  I realized that I could talk as much as I wanted about making a great album and playing quality shows, but unless I was actually going down that direction, it would never happen.

I started to surround myself with musicians whom I considered successful.  I would invite them for coffee and pick their brains about the music industry and how they got more gigs.  I started reading books and watching lectures about marketing and business.  One of my heart’s desires is to make music and be creative, but I found that understanding the business side of things helped me do more of what I loved to do.

I now often like to reassess my life and I ask myself, “Are the decisions I’m making and the way I spend my time putting me down the path of achieving my goals?”   If they are not, I try to adjust my trajectory so I get back on the path I want to go.  I believe that if you keep moving forward in a certain direction, even if you take a few steps back every once a while, you will eventually get to your destination.  It’s taken me a couple of years to finish my album, but by God’s grace it is about to be released and I am very proud of it.

Change Your Day

Examine how you spend your time today. Is the way you spend your time producing the feelings and results you want each day? Identify one action you can do today that will bring you closer to those results.

Change Your Week

If you have written goals, or even dreams, how have the activities of your past week moved you closer to seeing them become reality? What will you do next week to keep this momentum?

Change Your Life

Spend some time developing a very clear picture of your purpose. I believe will all have a purpose in life – if I’m right, wouldn’t it make sense to identify that specific purpose, then align every activity of every day, to move you closer, and closer to living out that purpose? The best news is, that purpose is a direction – on the one hand, you never will totally “arrive,” but on the other hand, each step in the direction is fulfillment of that very purpose