Change the Vehicle, Not the Destination

Have you ever been on a road trip and found yourself wishing you had a different vehicle about halfway through? Maybe something with a little more leg room, or perhaps a convertible to enjoy the amazing weather easier. Any vehicle could get you to your destination. And it would be fairly easy to change your vehicle. However, you don’t change your destination. It remains constant. If you wanted to get to New York City, and you are in Los Angeles, you’re not going to drive to Kansas City and then change your mind to go to Seattle just because it started to rain (barring any unforeseen and out of the ordinary emergencies!). You could even choose to start the trip at the airport and fly to make the trip quicker. Again, same destination, just a different vehicle to get you there.

I share this short example to illustrate how circumstance can change when going after a goal, yet the goal remains constant. It’s important to have such a connection to your goal, to your dream, that the changes in circumstances during your pursuit don’t derail the entire end point. What might change, though, is the vehicle you take to get to the result you are committed to achieving.

My personal experiences in this matter have led to some hard lessons learned. Those lessons have allowed me to grow and shift my mindset around what it looks like when going after my goals. I used to have a paradigm that looked like this: I choose a goal, set a date to achieve that goal, and then create a detailed plan of what I will do to hit that goal. This might sound like a pretty good system. It had all the key points needed to start on my journey so I could accomplish my goal. What I did was create a box that I chose to work from. It was a parameter that, in my mind, I had to stay in to achieve my goal. And if it wasn’t working, I needed to do the same thing again and try harder. I thought I was failing if I wasn’t achieving my goal in the way I envisioned. Can you relate to this? Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. In my years of coaching and mentoring others, I have found that most can relate to this if they are really honest with themselves.

Going back to my original illustration, I have learned to embrace the concept of possibility. What do I mean by this? When I pursue a goal now, I keep an open mind about what the journey can look like while keeping the destination fixed. I embrace trying new vehicles to see what moves me forward towards my goal. Maybe that’s a sports car driving 80 mph on a large highway one week, and the next I’m using a four-wheel drive Jeep to get through some thick mud that I wasn’t expecting. The vehicle changes, the destination does not.

This week, be open to possibilities that present themselves that can support you on your journey to achieving your goals.

When was the last time you evaluated what is working, and what isn’t working, in pursuit of your goals? If you are looking for additional support on this, drop me note and lets schedule time to talk. A trusted co-pilot is always an important piece of the puzzle on your road trips in life.