The Truth About Goals

We’ve all set goals for ourselves, and through hard work and dedication, we’ve probably met most of them. Goals are good. Actually, they are better than good. They are essential for keeping us on track, both personally and professionally. But goals should never become anything more than ways in which we mark our progress along the path we’ve chosen to take. Far too often, we set our sights on something and take off in hot pursuit, oblivious to what lies between us and the goal. 

A number of years ago, my husband’s work required that we move our family to Alaska, a journey of nearly 5000 miles. We decided that rather than travel by air and miss all of the scenery along the way, we would take several weeks and make a leisurely drive through the US and Canada, stopping along the way to “see what we could see”. My memories of those weeks are rich with family time and breathtaking natural beauty. We had an ultimate destination in mind, and we were determined to get there, but we learned and saw so much along the way. 

It turns out that Anchorage is an American city much like other mid-sized American cities; it’s just a lot further away from everything! But at the end of the journey, I knew a lot more about what lay in between my old home and new home, and most of it was stunningly beautiful. If getting from point A to point B had been our focus, with no time for observation in between, we would still have ultimately arrived in Anchorage, but we would have been poorer for it. 

And so it is with many of the goals we set for ourselves. The possibility exists that the reaching of the goal itself will be lackluster; better in our imagination than it is in reality. We will find that the true value was in what lay between the start and the finish.

Know where you are headed and plan how to get there, but keep your attention where it belongs – on the road itself. The road you travel isn’t what separates you from your destination; it’s what leads you to it.

I welcome your comments and the stories of your own journeys toward your goals.