Which way from here?

Cartoon by Simon Pearsall

This is the Swim Jump Fly Advent calendar — 12 bite-sized pieces of advice from my new book Swim Jump Fly: A guide to changing your life. I’ve already introduced focusing on your why [LINK HERE]. This time we’ll look at your where.

Lewis Carroll writes about where in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You may remember the story includes the Cheshire Cat and a conversation takes place between Alice and the cat. It goes like this:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where — “ said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Knowing where you want to go means you’re more likely to head off the right way. Focusing on your direction can ground you when everything else is shifting around. But if you don’t think about it enough, you’ll go round and round in circles, and that’ll make you feel sick. Where could be how you feel, think, or behave once you’ve made a change and sometimes that is less of a destination, more a general direction of travel.

Here is an exercise from the book to help you focus on your where:

1) Visualise your where, your destination, by playing a show-reel in your head. Where are…