The journey IS the destination
The concept of goal setting and achievement is an often contentious one. Some people believe in the virtues of being goal-driven and purposeful in life. Others believe that a fixation on goals detracts from appreciating the present.
Finally, we have a group who occupy a space somewhere between these two extremes. These people recognise the importance of living a life by design, while appreciating what one already has.
Goal setting
If you find yourself in this third group of people who live somewhere in this in-between area, how do you manage the inevitable tension between pursuing your goals and being grateful for what you already have?
It comes down to two questions to ask yourself:
1) What goals have I set and why are they important to me?
2) Am I focusing on the outcome or the process?
These questions are “tension release valves” that in-betweeners need to live in the tension between the two extremes. Let's explore each in more detail.
What goals have I set and why are they important to me?
The temptation to set goals that describe what you should be/do/have/experience is strong and often apparent to everyone but you, the goal setter.
Interrogating your motivations for the goals you’ve set is a release valve. When you interrogate your motivations, you’ll realise that your goals can exist in harmony with an appreciation for what you already have. Your goals are a recognition of the simple truth that we are, as humans, in a constant state of becoming where the current moment leads into the next, and the next, and the next.
“...your goals can exist in harmony with an appreciation for what you already have”
In this state of becoming it’s useful to be deliberate in deciding who you wish to become. The detail of the goals you set, become secondary to your primary objective which is to become someone worth becoming. Whether your actual goal is to be a Gazillionaire, to hike naked in the Andes (hmm.. wonder where that came from) or start a foundation to improve early childhood development globally, these goals become markers that confirm you’re moving in the direction of the ultimate goal: becoming someone worth becoming.
Am I focused on the outcome or the process?
There is scientific evidence to confirm that the brain prefers process over outcome–a fixation on outcome triggers a ‘pain response’ in the brain if it perceives the desired outcome as something difficult, unlikely or complex. Unfortunately our most exciting goals tend to fit this exact description.
Another way of releasing the goal promoters vs goal detractors tension we described earlier is to write a goal, and then immediately set your attention to setting out a process that your brain will happily engage with.
Chunking is a useful technique for doing this. Chunking is essentially taking a big scary and audacious goal and breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps until you have a tiny not-scary-at-all step that your brain can easily take.
The process becomes a sequence of steps you take, with each step bringing you closer and closer to your bigger goal.
When you focus on the ultimate goal behind every goal, i.e. becoming someone worth becoming and you focus on process over outcome, you begin to appreciate the value of the journey and notice that, in many ways, the journey is where all the magic and learning and resourcefulness happens and that indeed... the journey IS the destination.
