A journey is rarely a matter of merely pointing at your goal and pressing the gas. It is often about the stories you tell yourself, your team, and your organization. Overnight success usually takes about 15 years. It is best if you explore your micro-motives and what you do not know. Rarely is a journey a straightforward pursuit.

“Sometimes a dimension of ability that appears to be a weakness becomes a strength in the right context.” ― Todd Rose

Moreover, there are always struggles and course corrections along the way. You may embark on them out of hope, with a dream of a destination in mind. However, where you end up tends to be another matter and a different place entirely. Furthermore, that is ok — the way things should be.

That is just how it works. Your story will be full of twists and turns you did not plan or expect when you started. Still, that does not mean you return empty-handed. There is always something discovered, learned, or found, evoking your sense of wonder.

If you want your work to have greater meaning, there are at least three stories that you should tell.

Your Journey — Build Your Stories

It is powerful to approach your own story with a growth mindset, rooted in your sense of meaning, and to share it with others to build connection.

• Ask yourself, what are your most important values?
• What early experiences shaped them?
• How do you try to manifest them in your work every day and over time?

It is best if you view your career as a cycle of challenge, struggle, and learning that allows you to grow and find fulfillment.

Key Ingredients In Finding Fulfillment

Adopt a dark horse mindset. This mindset is useful in guiding you to a life of purpose, authenticity, and achievement, no matter where you are in your career. It has four integrated elements.

• know your performance DNA – what motivates you — your micro-motives and superpowers
• be open to opportunities — you are always in the pursuit of fulfillment
• create strategies to expand your talent stack to capitalize on the possibilities — following the path of least resistance does not create growth
• pursue gradient assent rather than a specific destination

The most important is understanding what truly motivates you.

Moreover, if you do not have this understanding, it is just not possible to get fulfillment. Most of us are terrible at really understanding what drives us. In Harness Your Individuality in the Pursuit of Fulfillment to Achieve Excellence, I set out how to play the judgement game to start to discover your micro-motives. A performance trait assessment is needed to round your performance DNA and help you realize your superpowers.

Your Team’s Journey

To lead a team, you need a shared sense of purpose. Share it through your stories. Moreover, do not just explain what you are doing or how you are doing it. Tell the story of why.

• What is your starting point?
• What is the challenge you need to overcome together to reach an important outcome?
• Why does that outcome matter in the grand scheme of things?
• How will you work together to navigate the inevitable struggles along the way?

As a leader with the ultimate accountability, you need to know that you can not do it alone. Moreover, a leader is only as good as their team. In leadership roles, the standard expectation is that you are performing the job within 18 months. So, job one for you is to surround yourself with experts who have different talent stacks — skills, knowledge, wisdom, accomplishments, and performance traits.

It is best if you have access to this diversity of thought and perspective as early as possible within your tenure. Within the first three months, create an environment where your team members are comfortable, giving you their opinion.

Moreover, you and your team are in it together. So, when wrestling with critical business decisions, talk freely with the group about what they agree, disagree, and possible challenges you may face.

Your Organization’s Journey

A great organization has a process of ongoing improvement — changing things that could be better. They work backward from a destination far in the future and then pursue many journeys, over time, to try to reach that place. You could call this strategy or mission or vision. However, whatever the label, boldly venturing toward a true north brings together culture and aligns the teams across it.

• What is the more remarkable journey of your organization?
• How will you ensure that the story is told often?

All these stories are an essential inspiration, especially when the odds seem daunting. They make it clear why our work matters.

Concluding Thoughts — Telling Stories

Spend time and create your stories, use examples based on your experiences, values, and beliefs. It will be time well spent.

Changing your mindset is not about picking up a few pointers. It is about seeing things in a new way. There are two essential mindsets for you to develop:

• growth mindset
• dark horse mindset

As you evolve to a growth mindset, you will switch from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn frame. Your evolution is a commitment to personal growth. This growth takes time, effort, and mutual support. However, it helps you create new exciting chapters to your story.

Fixating on a specific destination rather than a direction is problematic from two points:

• The target may disappear before you get there.
• You may get there and be disappointed.

Moreover, as the old saying goes — the grass is always greener on the other side. So, with gradient assent, you are learning, growing, and continuously discovering what provides you fulfillment, meaning and purpose. You bring other along through your stories.