On the path to share my Successful Mompreneur book, I’ve realized more than ever that life isn’t a race, it’s a journey.
I started the the goal of writing a book. That was the finish line—to get it all written. When I crossed that finish line I realized it wasn’t the end at all but the starting line for the next race, the next goal. That writing finish line was the starting line for editing. The editing finish line was the starting line for publishing. Now, I’ve been standing at the publishing finish line for a month.
The problem with finish lines is that you think that you’re done.
You think you’ve finished your race, achieved your goal and its time to slow down or even stop. You may even start slowing down, easing off the gas once the finish line is in sight.
A journey is different.
Each goal isn’t a finish line, its a way point, a rest stop. It gives you a short period to rest, recharge and look over your plans (maybe making tweaks based on what you’ve learned), before moving on to the next leg of your journey. Even while at a rest stop, you still maintain your vision and mindset to continue on with your journey. Sure, you may change your mind and take a different road or choose different rest stops along the way, but your journey remains constant.
So, don’t treat a journey like a race.
For yourself, or your teams, change the words and mindset you have when setting goals. Don’t just push to cross a specific finish line, like $1,000 in sales or a earning a new network marketing rank. If you do, you may find yourself and your team elated one month for achieving such a goal, and then depressed the following month when they don’t maintain that growth. You pushed to cross that finish line but you probably slowed down afterwards. Instead, map out goals as rest stops along your long-term journey. The goal shouldn’t be $1,000 a month. It’s $12,000 a year journey with a road map to build consistently towards $600 a month, then $800, then $1,000.
When you have a longer term, a longer journey, you blow by the smaller milestones and keep your steady and consistent pace to keep achieving.