It has been said that traveling through life without a goal is like traveling on a ship without a rudder. One will drift according to the winds and currents of life and wind up wherever it takes you. With a goal, having a direction or purpose, one can take charge and determine the direction their life will lead. But what is the direction one wants to take? Achieving the goal is not the problem, deciding on the goal is.
So what do people want? People may say things like, “all I want is to be happy” yet they don’t know what it is that will make them happy. Or they may say, “I just want to be successful” but haven’t defined what success is. Statements like these are not goals but wishful thinking. Yes, people usually want many things and they want them all at once.
Success has been defined as “the progressive realization of a worthy ideal”. What is that worthy ideal? What is the destination (goal) that one wants to reach? It means different things to different people and therefore must be defined individually. Simply stated, if one achieves what he/she has set out to achieve, they are successful.
Having set a goal there must be some form of commitment to achieve it, otherwise it is pure fantasy. A commitment that will cause one to lose something of value if not achieved. Without a commitment, when the going gets tough, the person will quit and then seek an excuse for their failure. With a commitment, something to lose, it provides a greater incentive to make it happen. The greater the commitment, the greater the chance of fulfillment.
1) Determine what it is you want. 2) Make a commitment to get it. 3) Begin without procrastination.
Just as a ship can only reach one port at a time, one can only reach one goal at a time. So determine what the port of call will be and begin the journey. Only after you’re reached that port can you set your next port of call.
Happy Sailing
April 6, 2007 at 11:12 pm |
Abe,
Comparing sailing without a rudder to live without goals is an excellent analogy. Without a heading, a sextant, and a rudder where would we be?
I particularly like this analogy because sailing like writing is one of my passions. A passion like many that combine joy, angst and addiction, that draws me to the sea or solace of my keyboard.
There are times when I am purely content, just writing, just sailing, seeing where the story may go or the trade winds may take me. But eventually a story needs a plot, and a ship needs a heading.
Yet one of my greatest accomplishments while sailing was when the motor went out. I tacked back and forth through the channel down the Inter Coastal Waterway, bringing it into the marina and docking with tricky currents under sail. It was a feat I never could have accomplished had I not spent just a little bit of time, sailing aimlessly with no particular goal, just feeling how the boat responded to the current, the waves and the wind.
Lynn