There is a time that we sit down and decide what we want to do with our lives or this next part of our lives. In that moment, we make a decision, and we set goals. We set the ‘big’, ‘final’ goal which is the overall outcome, then we set some smaller goals which need to be met to reach that final one. Then we begin the process of meeting those goals.
The problem is that we want to be there now. (I want patience, and I want it now!) The problem with this is that all things take time. But what we miss is that the important part is not so much the achieving of our goals, but what we go through along the way.
You see, the goal is not important, at least not as anything more than an impetus to start us moving. What is important are the things we go through while making the effort. In a true journey, we learn things. In learning things, we change, but most importantly, we grow. It is the change that allows us to grow, and it is the growth that we need that allows us to achieve what we want, and be what we need to be.
When I decided I wanted to be a massage therapist, I set that as a goal. Along that path, I had to go through school, learn a lot of things, and pass the national boards. All these were goals along the way to the final goal, and I wanted that final goal to happen. . . now. It did not, of course. But I wanted it to.
But no matter what I wanted, and what I drove myself to do, it was what I went though along the way that really mattered. On this journey, I had to learn anatomy, physiology, pathology, and whatever-else-ology. I had to learn massage, and working with clients, and addressing specific needs. I had to learn to interact with people, and talk so I sounded intelligent. I had to grow. I had to grow as a therapist, as a healer, and (most importantly) as a person.
We all set goals, and we all want them to happen immediately. When we’re children we want to be old enough to stay up until 10:00. Then we want to be old enough to date, and to be able to be out late on our own. Then we want to be old enough to move out and have a place of our own. If these things happened immediately, we would miss our childhood along with most of our young adult life. Imagine what you would be like if you missed all of the experiences during those periods.
One of the things that I discovered when I completed my goal of becoming a massage therapist was that I wanted to do more. I wanted to do massage on lots of clients and be successful at it. I wanted to know many modalities. And that meant more goals, and more journeys. So, set goals, but don’t be so obsessed with the goal that you forget to pay attention to the journey to it. After all once you make that goal, there will be another goal, and another journey. The key is not the goal, but the journey to get there. Enjoy the trip.