A pilot can be just one degree off course and never feel it. The instruments look normal. The plane is moving. There’s no turbulence, no warning light, no obvious sign that anything is wrong. It’s only over distance that the error reveals itself. And by then, a completely different destination is on the horizon.
The same thing happens in our businesses, careers, and lives.
Last week, we talked about the cost of busyness. How speed without direction isn’t productivity; it’s expensive chaos. This week is the natural next step: not just recognizing the drift but doing something about it.
Most professionals don’t abandon their goals dramatically. They drift past them quietly. One reactive week at a time, one postponed priority at a time. And after 30 years of working with some of the hardest-working professionals I have ever met, I can tell you that this kind of invisible drift is one of the most common reasons talented, driven people arrive at December wondering what happened to the year.
That’s the real cost of not correcting course. Not a dramatic failure. Just a quiet arrival at the wrong destination.
That’s exactly why a mid-year tune-up is so valuable. Taking time in June to evaluate your direction isn’t an admission that something is wrong. It’s what the most effective leaders do consistently. They understand that a small adjustment today creates a dramatically different result by year-end.
The question worth sitting with isn’t whether you’ve been working hard. You have. The question is whether the work has been pointed in the right direction.
Last week, I introduced Peter Demarest’s Central Question. This week, I want to show you when and why to return to it. Because this isn’t a tool you use once and move on from. It’s something you come back to deliberately, especially when the temptation is to keep moving rather than pause and reflect:
“What choice can I make and what action can I take in this moment to create the greatest net value?”
This question interrupts the drift. It shifts attention from reacting to creating, from being busy to being intentional. Before small misalignments become large ones.
This week, carve out 60 minutes. Not to work in your business, but to work on it. Ask yourself honestly whether your daily actions are still aligned with where you said you wanted to go.
A few degrees may not seem like much today. But the right adjustment now could be the difference between staying busy and arriving exactly where you intended by December.
The destination is still in front of you. The only question is whether you’re pointed at it. Learn more at Achievable.com.
Does Your Management Team have an MBA (Management by Accident) Mindset?
Many organizations promote their top performers into management, but too often, those new leaders continue to focus on their own tasks instead of building and guiding a team.
The outcome? ‘Management by Accident’ where team performance stalls and growth lags when what’s really needed is intentional, strategic leadership.
Take a moment to download and answer these 10 questions and see if your team is leading with an MBA (‘Management by Accident’) mindset.
