Life Is More Direction Than Speed

I heard Sahil Bloom say something that really stood out to me. He said that “life is more about direction than speed”.

It’s an interesting distinction because so often we get caught up in treating life like a race. We’re impatient and we want to achieve our goals sooner so that we can move on to achieving the next one. So much of our focus goes into doing things faster and doing them better, but before any of that, what’s most important is to make sure we’re doing the right things.

Think of it like climbing a mountain. Of course, first you want to make sure you’re climbing the right mountain. David Brooks has a book called “The Second Mountain" talking about the mistake many people make… Climbing the first mountain of wealth, status, and notoriety, only to realize that there’s the mountain of meaning and purpose behind it. 

I also like talking about progress using the metaphor of a mountain. Let’s say the goal is to get to the top of the mountain. There are many different ways you can achieve that. You can follow the paved trail, you can make the difficult climb up a steep face, you can even cut your losses, go back down to the bottom and take a different way up. You choose the path that is most likely to take you where you want to go. In other words, you pick your strategy for how you’ll achieve the goal.

And once you’ve decided on your strategy and chosen your path, now you need to walk on it. These are the tactics, the action steps you take in executing the strategy. Of course, the faster and better you take these steps, the faster progress you make.

With that in mind, saying life is more about direction than speed is analogous to saying that life is more about strategy than tactics. The tactics depend on the strategy just like the speed depends on the direction.

What does this look like? It’s doing work you enjoy rather than what pays you the most. It’s investing in building relationships with people who you deeply connect with, not those who make you look cool. It’s building toward the lifestyle of your dreams rather than spending money on the things that make you feel good in the short term.

Every step forward has a direction associated with it, and if you’re going the wrong way, going fast will take you even further off alignment. And if that happens, hopefully you realize it and can course correct before it’s too late.