What is a goal? Is it an endpoint? Or, could it be something more – a way station on the way to something bigger, better, MORE than you can possibly conceive?
When you think of a goal as an endpoint, it becomes easy to fixate on achieving. In the process you kick into high gear and find yourself knee deep in the habitual strain that accompanies the desire to get somewhere and get there now.
That strain, in turn, results in excessive and often inefficient effort that paradoxically works to keep you from achieving the very thing you desire. Or achieving in a way that finds you exhausted and unsure of how you got to where you are or where to go from there.
The antidote to all that strain is to set a “fuzzy” goal, to look at your desired outcome as a POSSIBILITY instead of an ultimate. When you do that, when you let go of “achieving”, you slip into learning. There, in that state of potential, you open yourself to the possibility of more – higher achievement, greater efficiency, greater and more success. ALL in a way that is repeatable.
Learning is the state in which you take small actions, notice what happens, assess the impact and make small adjustments in the direction of your desire. Learning allows you to let go of the effort that holds you back, it clears you to find ease and efficiency in your actions. Learning awakens you to your true potential. It broadens your horizons and creates the possibility of exceeding the limits of your imagination.
Achieving, on the other hand, is the state of pushing ahead regardless the cost. Achieving means putting on blinders, focusing only on your goal even if you have no clear idea of how to get there. It leads you forward without concern for the effects of your actions – on yourself and the world around you. Achieving limits you to what you can conceive. It has a finite endpoint with no hope of something better.
Push to achieve or pay attention to learn. One may get you to your goal. The other may well take you there and beyond. Which will you choose?
Life Options 