The most successful people in the world know that the goal you set for yourself isn’t the goal. The goal is the motivator.
◊♦◊
You ask yourself why you don’t feel more… something… anything.
|
Do you often set goals based on “the end goal” and then when you achieve them you find yourself feeling weirdly empty? You ask yourself why you don’t feel more… something… anything.
The most successful people in the world know that the goal you set for yourself isn’t the goal. The goal is the motivator. The goal gets you up in the morning with verve. The goal is not the goal.
◊♦◊
What are you talking about Dale? The Goal IS the Goal!
600 miles had gone underfoot when I reached the end of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain with my fellow pilgrims. We raced through the beautiful old city… our eyes searching for the next yellow arrow to point us to the cathedral and the finish line. Excitement brewed in my stomach… This is it! This is what we’ve been walking everyday for… this is the answer!
Then we turned the corner and guess what… there wasn’t any answer.
It’s a beautiful cathedral, a great moment in my life, and a feeling of accomplishment will always come from the memory of that moment; but the greatest lesson I learned that bittersweet day was that the Goal Is Not The Goal.
I thought that for six weeks I was waking up every morning at dawn, lacing up smelly boots, eating a meager meal, and strapping myself to my snail shell we call a backpack so that I could get one day closer to the END GOAL.
When I reached the END GOAL, and everyday since the Camino, I’ve tried to recreate the feeling I got from those other six weeks.
The END GOAL got me up and moving every morning, but it was the moving every morning that was the powerful part. I needed to do the walking… not as much the arriving. And in a way, it was the walking that WAS the arriving.
◊♦◊
The point is this… your big goal… it should be BIG! And when you make it and commit to trying to reach it, you should know that IT’S NOT THE GOAL! All the things you do along the way are the real reason to have the goal.
Thus, the bone is not the reward… the digging is the reward.
◊♦◊
More from The Empowered Life
…One of the biggest reasons those fledgling habits don’t get off the ground is because it’s so easy to forget or to prioritize other things over your new habit. You have the will-power, you just need a system… luckily, if you know this secret that successful people tend to know, you can get started today.
The secret is: There are 2 times each day when habit-forming is easiest…
If you like the Empowered Life, check out EmpowerMentorship.com for deeper learning, subscribe to the EmpowerMentorship playlist on Youtube, or read more of my writing on the Good Men Project:
- 20 Lessons From My Men’s Group That Have Improved My Life
- The Tip of The Sexual Violence-Berg
- Vulnerability and Public Speaking to Men and Boys
- Who Is In Your Rowboat?
- Simple Wisdom from The Greatest Coach Of All Time
- How to Not Be Alone – Have Man Friends
- Dry Well Syndrome
- The Myth of “Tomorrow”
- 40 Years of the Post-Violence Man
- Yes, Ladies, Gentlemen Actually Exist
Like the Good Men Project on Facebook!
All photos by Dale Thomas Vaughn except the obvious New Yorker comic.