Eyes on the prize

It’s not how you start but how you finish that counts. MARCIA GRIFFIN

By Marcia Griffin

How many of us started the year with really good intentions? We were going to turn over a new leaf, eat only healthy food, lose weight etc etc.

As we are now almost halfway through the year, how many of us are any way to achieving any of those big goals we started the year with? How can we maintain our commitment to the achievement of what we say we want to do?

One of the keys I believe is to focus not only on the final goal but the steps to achieving that goal, and enjoying those steps along the way.

Celebrating the small wins, reflecting on the losses and resolving to deal with them better in future is an interesting way of sustaining our commitment to achieving what we want.

Even before this is the importance of doing what we really want to do. How painful and useless living a life, doing a job simply to pay the bills – no doubt we have all had some time in that place – but being excited beyond bill payments is a far more sustaining way to live and achieve.

Therefore we need to select those goals that really give us satisfaction and deep feelings of fulfilment.

When I speak to people who are successful over a long period of time, they say that their goals are so exciting/interesting for them that the journey becomes self perpetuating. Each leg of the trip is so good that the road just widens and the adventure becomes an end in itself.

Have your ever noticed how the striving for success can be as interesting as getting there? I noticed this during my recent treks in Bhutan – the journey to the top was often almost as good as the view.

In fact, on my last trek up the very steep track to the Taktshang monastery (the name means “Tiger’s nest”), I had a terrible problem with walking near the edge of the sheer cliff to the monastery (see the picture below). But the walk up was so good that it made up for my disappointment at not making the last 500 steps on the sheer cliff – the spot I had to stop at was so breathtaking that my guide suggested we simply sit and look, and enjoy where we were.

I think that to enjoy the journey makes continuing success sustainable – overcoming difficulties, working out solutions, having wins along the way; that is the key.

This is what keeps us going to the end.