The Water Tower
Momentum without direction is just motion.
A while back I was listening to a friend tell a story about growing up on her grandfather's farm. Up at 3:30. Milking cows by 4. Working the fields until mid-afternoon. Long days of activity, all of it moving toward a known outcome.
One afternoon, she and her brother decided to walk to the water tower. They could see it clearly from the open fields. But as they entered the canopy of the woods, they lost sight of it. Sure of their ability to walk a straight line, they kept going. Convinced they were headed the right way.
They walked far past the time it should have taken. Eventually they stumbled onto a road, where a local farmer saw them and stopped. They had drifted badly off course. They were nowhere near the water tower.
That story stayed with me, because it is what happens to almost everyone doing ambitious work. We get pulled into the day to day. We get caught up in reacting. We put our heads down and lose sight of the long term objective. We lose sight of our water tower.
When things pick up, the momentum feels good. The activity increases. Opportunities show up. But momentum without direction is just motion. You can move fast and still drift, and the drift is hardest to catch precisely when you are busiest and most certain you are walking straight.
So the discipline is simple, and it is not about doing more. It is about looking up. Are you focused on your long term objective, or only on the activity in front of you? Does your calendar reflect where you are actually trying to go? Are you leading, or reacting to whatever is closest?
The daily work is necessary. But it is not the objective. Keep your eyes on the water tower.