What got you here, wont get you there but it will almost always help, so don’t forget that

No doubt you’ve heard the saying ‘what got you here, wont get you there’. 

The title of Marshall Goldsmith’s book highlights the importance of evolving behaviours, habits, skills and priorities as the process of personal growth that enables us to achieve future success.

While having not read the book, the title, which is the thing I have heard thrown around a lot (including by myself) feels like it risks discrediting what got us here. 

So while to a large extent this title feels true, perhaps a more wordy, less pithy, but hopefully more useful reframing of it is:

What you got you here, wont get you there, because it is always different, but what got you here can absolutely help get you there.

And in reframing it like this we can recognise the resources and experiences that got us here so that we can not only recognise what we need to get us there but also what we already have and can harness. 

In other words, we may be able to recognise we are either further up the mountain than we thought or have climbed mountains that we didn’t even realise can make this a far more climbable mountain than we may have initially felt. 

What got you here, wont get you there, because it is always different

If we take the saying literally it is true because we simply cannot get there in the same way we get here. Even if here is the same place as there, the sense of travel inherent in the idea means the journey has to be different.

For example if I walked from home to the office, even if the here and there, the home and the office, are the same tomorrow, and the what, walking, are the same, it just wont be the same. I’ll pass different people, likely have to avoid obstacles in the way that weren’t there (possibly some of those different people), and likely navigate different weather among many, many things. 

While this feels quite pedantic and a very specific example it is pertinent. Yes, the saying is really talking about going from one thing to the next, however, it feels important to recognise that we are almost always going from here to there, to here and to there again, on a daily, moment by moment basis. In doing this regular here to there we are constantly navigating novelty, adapting, evolving, facing challenges, sometimes big, sometimes small. 

This isn’t just to acknowledge the feat of navigating daily life (which we perhaps often don’t give ourselves enough credit for) it helps emphasise that we don’t live in a vacuum. Every moment is new in some way even if we’re doing the same things so even when here and there seem the same they are different. We are always navigating different conditions. 

Our brains, as pattern-making machines, filter out the minute novelties, so we can unconsciously do a lot of things without realising, because it would no doubt be overwhelming if absolutely every moment felt as novel as it is. 

Which is all to say, what got us here may not get us there, because it may require us to acquire new skills, go beyond our comfort zone, or change our context, but it also feels important to notice we do that on some level on a moment by moment basis, refining and honing our practiced habits to meet the evolving moment. 

Which is all to say, let's not throw away what got you here — the growth, the skills, the knowledge —  because it can absolutely help get you there. 

What got you here, wont get you there, but what got you here can absolutely help

Imagine you gain a qualification you have been working towards for some time. What got you there alone is unlikely to get you the next level of success, such as a long-term career goal. Still it is no doubt an invaluable step. Which takes us to the ‘but what got you here can absolutely help get you there.’ 

In this example there is a fairly logical possible path into a career, but it won't be the only thing that gets you to that career, that gets you there. There are all the other practical steps of finding a job and starting a career and the intangible aspects, qualities and skills such as perseverance, research, relationship building etc. 

Which are all things you have no doubt developed from the experiences that got you here. 

So yes, while what got you to your current context may not be everything you need to get to your new context, if you don’t consider what got you here, how can you harness those experiences to get you there? 

And even if you don’t want to be here, knowing that and knowing what got you there can help ensure that in trying to get there you don’t end up back here again.

For example, if I’m burnt out or having a conflict with a colleague or friend, the things that got me to this point are likely not things to replicate and knowing that is no doubt very useful. 

So really this all comes down to

1. How clear are we on where we are and what got us here?

2. How clear are we on where we want to be and what can get us there?

3. How clear are we on what we can take from what got us here to get us there and what else do we need? 

4. What do we need in order to recognise what we’ve learnt (and often our progress) in getting here to harness it towards getting there?

And even if here and there feel totally different, what are some of the things we can utilise? Again, there is almost always something that is transferable. If this doesn’t feel true some of the most valuable lessons and transferable experiences I’ve had in leading have come from baking bread and playing board games, to name just a couple of examples.

So what if focusing on what got us here may in fact be the first step to getting us to where we next want to be?

And what would it be like to know that what got us here in some way will equip us for getting where we want to be next?