Lack of Time or Lack of Direction | What is true for you? Goal lessons with Sawan Kumar

Most people blame a lack of time when the real problem is a lack of direction. Once you fix the direction, time stops being the bottleneck and your goals start hitting their deadlines.

Direct Answer: Is It Lack of Time or Lack of Direction?

Lack of time is rarely the real problem — lack of direction is. When you design goals with a written reason, listed obstacles, identified vehicles, specific actions, a game plan, and a date, you stop drifting and start executing. The same person who claims they have no time will finish a month of errands in two days before a vacation, because suddenly the direction is crystal clear.

The Vacation Test: Why Deadlines Change Everything

Watch what happens before you board a flight. You become hyper-productive, hyper-focused, you build a list, you prioritise, you commit, you take responsibility, and you pull family and colleagues in to help you finish. Nothing about your available hours changed — only the deadline did.

Elon Musk made this point bluntly: ask someone to clean a room in three months and it takes three months; ask them to clean the same room in a week and it takes a week. The deadline directly controls your intensity, your focus, and your priority. After training 79,000+ students across 74+ courses, I see this pattern repeat in every cohort — the students who set tight, written deadlines ship; the ones who keep their goals open-ended stay stuck.

Dreams vs. Goals: The One Difference That Matters

There are two kinds of dreams. The dreams you see when you're asleep don't change your life. The dreams you see with your eyes wide open can — but only if you put a deadline on them. The moment a dream gets a date, it becomes a goal. Without a date, it stays a dream, and dreams don't get done.

How to Design a Goal That Beats Lack of Direction

Designing a goal is a process, not a wish. As a Chartered Accountant, I treat it like a structured workflow — every step builds on the last. Here is the exact sequence I use with my coaching clients in Dubai and online:

• List your goals. Write them down. Leave the page alone for a day or two so your subconscious can work on it.
• Add the why. Next to each goal, write why it is your goal, what you will get when you reach it, and what specific benefits it unlocks.
• Identify the obstacles. List everything that could stop you or slow you down. Naming them shrinks them.
• Find the vehicle. Identify the person, mentor, organisation, course, or system that will help you get there. Goals don't move on willpower alone — they move on vehicles.
• Define the actions. What exactly do you need to do? Not vague intentions — specific actions.
• Build the game plan. Sequence the actions. Decide what comes first, second, third.
• Put a date on it. The date is what converts a list into a time-bound goal. Without a date, you are not committed — you are just hoping.

Once a date exists, you owe yourself massive action. You owe yourself focus. You owe yourself the same vacation-mode urgency you give a flight you booked.

Why People Tell You What You Cannot Do

While you are designing your goals, a quiet voice will show up: I can't do this. I'm not good enough. I'm a loser. That voice is rarely yours. It is borrowed — installed by people who only criticise your failures and ignore your wins. Most people around you will list what you cannot do far louder than they will list what you have already done.

The Victory Sheet: Your Antidote to Self-Doubt

Here is the counter-move. Sit down and list every success and every victory you have had in your past — every exam cleared, every client won, every project shipped, every weight lost, every habit kept. This sheet does one job: it gives you massive confidence that you can achieve any goal you write down, because you have already achieved goals before.

Keep the victory sheet inside your goal book. The next time the loser-voice shows up, pull it out. The proof is in your own handwriting.

Stop Playing Not to Lose. Start Playing to Win.

There is a hidden cost to borrowed self-doubt: you start playing the game to avoid losing instead of playing to win. The two look similar from the outside; they produce wildly different lives. When the goal on the page is yours — your target, your deadline, your game plan — you are no longer playing somebody else's game. You are playing yours, and you have to tell yourself, out loud, that you are going to win it.

What To Do Today

The fix for a lack of direction is one page of paper and 30 minutes. Take a sheet, write down your top three goals, add the why, the obstacles, the vehicle, the actions, the game plan, and a date for each — and then write a second list of every win you have already had so the first list feels possible.

Stop blaming time. Design the direction, put the deadline on it, and the time will appear.

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Source: Dominican University goal-setting study, The 12 Week Year (Brian Moran), Locke & Latham 35-year goal-setting research published in American Psychologist (2002).