Are You Going in the Direction You Actually Want to Go?
Prefer to listen rather than read? Listen to the podcast episode covering this same topic here → The Quietly Disruptive Business Podcast
Every founder has a destination. A vision, an impact, a version of success that pulled them out of employment and into building something of their own. You set sail towards it with purpose and clarity. But somewhere between the harbour and the horizon, something shifted. Not dramatically — not a sudden turn you could point to — but gradually, degree by degree, until one day you looked up and realised you’re not where you expected to be. You’re still moving, still busy, still productive — but the landscape doesn’t look like the one you were heading towards. The question worth sitting with is this: are you actually going in the direction you want to go?
Your Business Is a Sailboat, And the Wind Is Everyone Else’s Opinion
Think of your business as a sailboat on open water. No engine — just sails, a heading, and the wind. The wind is everything that comes at you from the outside: other people’s opinions, approaches, strategies, hooks, frameworks, and the relentless noise of what you should be doing. It blows from every direction — social media, industry experts, competitors, well-meaning peers — and it never stops. Some of it is gentle. Some of it is strong enough to shift your course without you noticing.
Every time you open a social platform and see someone telling you which hook to use, which offer to build, or which marketing tactic everyone else is using, that’s the wind hitting your sails. And the sneaky part? It often feels like momentum. Your boat is moving. Things are happening. But moving and moving in the right direction are not the same thing.
Momentum can feel like progress, but what if the wind is pushing you somewhere you never chose?
When Someone Else’s Approach Becomes Your Direction
This is where it gets subtle. You try a marketing approach because it’s what works for other people. It gets results — clicks, enquiries, action — so it feels productive. But it doesn’t sit right. Maybe it’s pain-led marketing that pushes on a wound rather than opening a conversation. Maybe it’s an offer structure you copied because everyone seemed to have one. Maybe it’s a way of speaking to clients that sounds professional but doesn’t sound like you.
Each one is a small course correction you didn’t consciously choose. Inch by inch, your business drifts. Not because you made a bad decision, but because you let the wind decide. And the thing about drifting is that you’ll still arrive somewhere — just not necessarily where you wanted to be. You’ll look back and struggle to name the moment it changed, because there wasn’t one. It was a thousand tiny adjustments, none of them dramatic enough to question at the time.
The Difference Between Using the Wind and Letting It Decide
None of this means you should ignore what’s happening around you. Learning from others, experimenting with approaches, staying curious — that’s how you figure out what works for you. But there’s a difference between using the wind to move you where you want to go and letting the wind choose where you end up. One is intentional. The other is a slow surrender you might not even notice until you’re miles off course.
The real question underneath all of this is whether the things on your to-do list — the tasks, the content, the offers, the way you spend your working hours — are moving you towards your destination in a way that feels right for you. Not just forward. Not just productive. But right.
So here’s what I’d like you to sit with before we get into the practical side. Look at your business as a whole — the list, the energy, the direction everything is pointing in. Are those things helping you move towards where you actually want to be? Or are they creating movement, but in a direction the wind chose for you? If there’s even a flicker of hesitation when you ask that question, then the next blog post is for you.
About the Author: Becky Benfield Humberstone partners with Quietly Disruptive founders to build businesses that change their corner of the world, on their terms. If you started your business because you believed things could be done differently, and you're ready to make that vision real, she gets it. Based in the UK and working globally via Zoom and in person, she's done this work herself, more than once.
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