Here we are: One week in to 2024. I hope it’s been a good one for you. Like many of you, I got up on that first day with a plan (more or less). I intended to start exploring, and making progress on the things I’d talked about Last Week. I was going to get in there and do all the things – every day.
Until I failed to do so.
Now I used that word specifically, and let me tell you why. I suspect that many of you read that and felt a little twinge. The one you perhaps feel every year when you slip off the rails of your plan for the new year. When you fail yourself.
Here’s the thing though: I knew I was going to fail. I’d planned on there being failure. Failure isn’t a bad thing. That’s where the learning happens. You are not a machine – and even machines fail, so that’s not even a proper comparison. But the hard truth is that failure is coming for you. But that’s also a good thing.
Now, in truth, my failure wasn’t dire. There were a couple of nights there where I didn’t get the amount of sleep that I was shooting for, but that’s life. That’s also not the point. The point is that your best laid plans…will suffer some setbacks.
Which brings me to the title of this post.
It’s been said that the only constant thing in life is change. Of those constantly changing things, one of the things that should resist that tendency to change the most are your goals. Sure, they may change from year to year, or if something significant happens (maybe), but that’s a short term look. Looking farther down the road, depending on the goal and how long it takes to get there, your goals should be as unyielding as the pavement. You know, rigid.
But we all know that the road can curve. It can sway. The road can rise or fall.
Before this whole metaphor collapses, my point is that during the year as it unfolds, however it unfolds, try to be rigid with your goals, but fluid in how you get there. Maybe you’ve had a setback, maybe a particular approach isn’t working and you need to come at things from a different direction.
That’s OK. It doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you get there.
But here’s the thing: There is no “There” to get to, because there’s always something new on the horizon. It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey, so enjoy the ride.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
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