Goal setting is a lot like taking a road trip. Let’s say you want to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The first thing you probably do is get out a map, and plan your route. You estimate the time it will take you, maybe you even estimate how many pit stops you will make. You know how many miles your journey will take you, and you can calculate how often you need to fill up your gas tank.
Perhaps you need to take time off from work to complete your travels. So you make the arrangements, get the required approvals, and re-distribute your workload among colleagues or you rearrange your schedule to accommodate your time away. You coordinate your lodging arrangements, set aside the required funds your journey will require, arrange for your plants to be watered, mail to be picked up, and pets to be cared for. All this work and you haven’t started the journey yet.
Are You Sabotaging Your Personal Development Efforts?
Maybe you start to make the necessary arrangements and feel a little overwhelmed at the effort and actions taking this trip will require. You will have to coordinate schedules, rely on the support from others, and budget your time and resources accordingly. You realize it’s going to require quite a bit of effort just to get on the road. Suddenly your vacation seems more like work than a relaxing getaway. And maybe you even talk yourself out of your trip, overwhelmed at the tasks your trip would require.
It would just be simpler to stay home, wouldn’t it?
Keep things status quo?
Yes, a road trip is a lot like goal setting. How many times have you derailed or sabotaged your own personal development efforts because you were so overwhelmed at the work, or struggle, the journey would require? When we focus on the struggle involved, it hardly makes the outcome seem worth it. And that is precisely why I am going to encourage you to stop focusing on the end result, and focus on the journey. One step at a time.
Plan the Goal, not the Outcome
When we release any emotional attachment we may have to the outcome, it allows us to focus on what is in front of us, right now. There is no reason to feel worry or struggle. We believe that our journey will unfold exactly as it should once we start taking action. Do not allow your anxiety over the journey keep you stuck, and in a state of resistance.
Tags: journey · living in the now · resistance · struggle · worry2 Comments
2 responses so far ↓
That`s so true. For example, you decide to start jogging cause you want to do something good for your self. You set a goal to jog only 2 km today cause you are out of shape, but it is still going to cost you some effort. If you keep watching your destination point you will get soooo discouraged, cause it seems to be sooo far away and you are already sooo tired and out of breath.The chances are, you will probably stop to catch your breath and go home hoping that the next time you`ll do better. But if you keep your look at just 1 meter in front of your feet, suddenly you`ll reach your destination and you won`t even notice when and how did it happen, and you`ll gain this great feeling of self respect and confidence.
Many thanks for that. I am just starting out and feel totally overwhelmed by the amount of information it seems I should absorb. And all the time spent searching is time wasted.
Biljana is so right. Running required a great deal of discipline and I remember one race when I was exhausted, but promised myself I would run 1km, walk for 10 paces and then a further 1km. I made it and won my category.