The Key Difference Between a Goal and a Path in Life

I spent fifteen years chasing goals that weren’t mine.

I tried to carve a path for myself, but no matter how hard I tried, life was mostly a struggle. I failed hundreds of times before I achieved a bit of success. Looking back, I’ve been chasing the wrong goals.

A path leads to your goal, and the two are not necessarily the same

I used to think my goal was to build a successful business.

I now realize it’s just a path to help manifest my goal. My goal is, and in a way always has been, to start a family and live close to nature. It’s what my heart always desired. But somehow, shiny objects carried me away from my true goal.

Chasing women in bars, building four different marketing agencies, these were false goals.

To find your true goal, turn to your heart

Define your innermost desire.

Your goal should never make you suffer in the long-term.

If life gets complicated while you’re chasing your goal, it’s probably the wrong one.

Two years ago, I was excited to build a marketing agency. I pursued it with everything I had and got solid results. Yet something felt off. My revenue was up and down, and so was I. It was an uphill battle, partly because of the wrong business strategies. But it was also because I never really wanted to build an agency. That goal never originated from within me- but from the outside (what you would call “society”).

What is your heart drawn to?

To find your path, consider the things you do effortlessly

Your path makes your life feel like a continuous holiday.

“If your door (path) fits your goal, you will become rich doing the hobby you love most. You will create masterpieces as long as you don’t allow pendulums (society) to lead you astray… So, who do you want to be?” Vadim Zeland, “Reality Transurfing.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Your path could be writing, coding, working out, building Lego, fishing or anything else you do well and enjoy learning about. Your job is to experiment, open yourself to new knowledge, and let your heart guide you.

Sometimes the path is the goal itself

Perhaps an activity brings complete meaning to your life.

For example, say you love selling on the phone. You feel the groove every time you do it. You spend countless hours selling different products. You enjoy talking about it with your friends and family. You also enjoy teaching sales, and consider sales your life’s work. That could be not only your “job”, but also your innermost goal. Your goal would be teaching sales, which is also the path in that case.

Lucky you 🙂

Conclusion

No one can tell you what to do with your life. Quality advice helps, but at the end of the day you’re the one who has to decide. Finding your way in life could take you a year or it could take you a decade. But one thing is for certain:

Once you walk your true path towards your goal, you can’t be any happier.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.