Life's a journey - what does this mean?
One piece of advice my dad gave me, was to remember that life is a journey. It’s hard when you are 20 years old to really know what this means?
As I get older, a ripe old age of 42 I really consider this concept of journey. It’s an interesting one, very personal and something that evolves.
The dictionary says that journey is – an act of travelling from one place to another. Where are we travelling too? What is this journey of life. Wow, very deep thing to think through.
I am not sure I have the degree to make an assessment on where we are heading, I can definitely focus on what this journey needs to look like, what is a successful journey.
In business, when we start a program we normally start by designing the end-state view – what does success look like, where are we heading and what are the key design principles that need to be determined in relation to this. This sets the course, direction and gives people something to anchor too. It makes decisions easier and allows people to work towards a common goal. I suppose life is not that simple – what is the end state you are building and what are the design principles to make decisions around your journey? Maybe that is why people talk about what you want people to say at your funeral, that is quite depressing but maybe they are trying to design this end state view to build the guardrails for the journey. On the journey of life it’s probably not that easy.
To define success for your journey, you should consider the following:
What makes you happy – do more
What are you good at – do more
What is aligned to your strengths – do more
What develops you / stretches you, in the right direction – do more
What allows you to associate with people that inspire and challenge you – do more
What makes you miserable – do less
What makes you uninspired – do less
What makes you focus on counting down the week – do less
You know in your gut it’s not good for you – do less
So many more rules you could apply, but you get the drift. You need to determine what you are going to do in your journey, it’s like a choose your own adventure book… you remember you can pick which direction you took the characters on. The reality is life, is like a choose your own adventure, but there are also things that you can’t control that will land in your lap and how you respond.
When thinking about the journey, people reference sprint versus marathon and ensuring you don’t go to quick you burn yourself out and you enjoy the journey. Everyone has a different pace, but sometimes you do need to slow down – for your health, for your family, to slow down to speed up, so people can keep up.
What is your pace?
Enjoying the journey, as you get older you realise that you need to enjoy the journey – life’s short. Time speeds up and making the best of every time you have in life is so critical. This means spending time with people that inspire, challenge and encourage you. Caring about their opinions but not listening to others. Embracing yourself, imperfections and all and do what makes you happy.
On the journey there will be great days, there will be speed humps and there will be an accident on the freeway that will stop you in your tracks. The hardest days are the ones that will demonstrate to yourself your tenacity, your passion and your ability to keep going. While you are in the moment, it will appear too much and once your through you will proud of your achievement.
Remember take time on the journey for a breather – to reflect what you have achieved, where you are and how you are going to continue on your journey. You continue to learn lessons, some the hard way that may change your journey, how you approach your journey or your destination.
Regardless of what you see on social media, no one has a perfect life. So be kind to yourself, to others and don’t compare, just enjoy your journey and make sure you have some great people on the way you can share the journey with!
I know that on my journey I want to make a difference to people’s life for the better. I am passionate about helping businesses optimise and I hope that I can leave a legacy in working with businesses to drive success.
