Finding an indirect path toward what we want

A schooner might be able to travel directly to its destination — but it depends on the wind. (Image by bobeckhard)

A friend approached me for career advice.

She wanted to help people become more joyful, so she was hoping to create a business as a happiness coach.

It’s a nice idea. And coaching sounds great — like being a therapist without all that pesky education. But at twenty-four, without a lot of credibility and experience, where could she begin?

With such limited life experience and coaching experience – and probably happiness experience – it was going be hard for my friend to establish credibility. Furthermore, she was going to have to justify the value of something difficult to quantify. Not impossible, but certainly an uphill climb for a brand new entrepreneur. 

So I advised my friend to find an indirect way to help people to be more more joyful. After all, we find joy through varied experiences and challenging pursuits. So perhaps she could facilitate those types of experiences for people, or even help them develop the necessary skills for specific activities. The range of possibilities here would be endless. She could be anything from an entertainer to a hotel concierge to a skydiving instructor to a supermarket checkout person who puts a smile on someone’s face with a friendly word. There are infinite ways to help people to be more joyful, and not all of them require a specific profession dedicated to it. What’s more, they don’t even require that you be paid.

My friend’s confusion is common. I have often seen people struggle to find a strategy to get what they want. They believe that there’s only one way to have what they’re looking for, and then they get frustrated or discouraged if they can’t make that happen. But if we’re willing to let go of the exact way that we think we will accomplish our goal, we’ll find that there are far more possibilities available to us.

Whatever we want, it’s helpful to dig into why. That’s where we may discover that there’s another path toward our desired outcome.

My friend didn’t really want to be a happiness coach. My friend wanted to be useful to others and contribute to other people’s happiness and her own. When she examined her skills, she realize that she had lots of possibilities for being able to provide a useful service to someone and help them be more joyful at the same time. For instance, she could provide instruction to English language learners, volunteer in hospitals, or perform as a singer. She could coach a middle school volleyball team or work as an administrator in a non-profit organization she believed in. There were so many options.

The indirect path to getting what we want might be the one that gets us there the fastest. It helps if we can look at our desires and goals in a fresh way, seeing connections that we may have overlooked at first.

My friend still wants to start a business. However, she’s shifted away from thinking in terms of what she wants to contribute and is now focused more on what others may be looking for. Ironically, now that she’s not trying to be a happiness coach, she’s happier than ever.