Goal Achievement

“We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we’ve established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile.”
–Earl Nightingale

“Success is a journey… Not a destination.”
–Ben Sweetland

Goal achievement is considered by some to be success, for it is true that success is defined by the achievement of a desired objective. But you may have noticed that I like to use words such as “potential,” “alignment,” or “successfulness” to describe this true success to which I am referring. As you can understand, goals are personal and success is relative to the individual.

There are as many types of goals as there are people in the world. Not only that, but some people consider themselves as successful with or without any goals. If a person works and lives with some special purpose, that person may consider himself as successful.

For instance, to the painter, who is engrossed in his work and doesn’t care if whether or not his work is completed let alone worth anything, could very well mean success. Another example is a person who devotes his life to charity. If giving of himself is his purpose, even if that person has no specific goal in mind, he will find a sense of fulfillment in what he does.

This is why I will not show you specific techniques on how to achieve your success but to help you make your journey more consciously purposeful. Just as “failure” is not the person who failed but the result of failing, “success” is not the result of reaching goals but the process of living a worthy ideal. Hence, the trick is to become purposeful, regardless of the outcome.

Goals, therefore, are not really meant to be achieved but to bring meaning and purpose to an individual’s life. They are not meant to be objectives in and of themselves. A quote by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm sums it beautifully: “There is only one meaning to life; the act of living itself.”

In essence, true success is the journey and not the goal. You must bring passion to your life rather than find goals that bring you passion. Whether or not they are achieved is of no importance. Success does not occur after goals have been reached but during the process of working on them. In other words, success is in the living and not in the achieving.

Just as death is a result, you don’t live in order to die. Life is not meant to be lived out but to be lived up. In the same way, a goal is not meant to be reached but to be enjoyed. Forget the rush, the expediency, and the do-as-much-as-you-can attitude.

This is where so much frustration and anxiety in the world is created. People think they can not be or do or have something until they get it in its physical form, in which case they will never fully achieve a sense of fulfillment.

If mountain climbers strive to climb Mount Everest, do they do so just to be at the top? Of course not. For instance, I’m not a mountain climber. I have no love for the sport. Therefore, I can easily take a helicopter to get there if this was (and if I were to focus strictly on) my goal. But to a mountain climber, the passion is in the challenge and not in the peak. It’s in the climb and not in the summit.

Harold V. Melchert once said, “Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. Climb slowly, steadily, enjoying each passing moment; and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax for the journey.”

That is why I can not define success but only generalize it as being a process and not a result. In essence, success is being your best at doing your best to enjoy life; it’s in the living and not in the winning. If your life has greater meaning and purpose, then you are truly successful. Even if you failed along the way, it is of no importance at all.

How much more willing are you to keep on keeping on when you follow your bliss, when what you do has intrinsic value? The answer is obvious. Failure is not the end of a goal but a form of feedback on your journey. Success is not the end of a goal either, for it is the continuous process of living out your inner you.

Your successfulness does not lie in producing results or in achieving goals. Success is in the essence of a goal. In other words, if you love what you do or do what you love, what you seek will come to you as the result of what you believe in and not what you do. When you’re connected, you are naturally attracting the essential qualities you seek and your life will have greater meaning.

I believe that goal achievement has been overly sensationalized in today’s hectic and fast-paced culture. Consequently, goals — and not the purpose behind them — have become priorities. Today, output is the name of the game and goals have become as necessary as oxygen.

While they are important because they can be used as outlets through which one can achieve a sense of purpose, the level of importance people attribute to their goals is what causes some people to fail in life. Dr. Stefan Rechschafften, in his book TimeShifting, said, “Trying to accomplish more and more takes away the most precious resources in the world…

“… Your present moments.”

Focusing on goals will usually cause a person to wonder, “Is this it?” “Where has the time gone?” or, “There must be more to life than this!” Goals can become inconspicuously misleading and may end up causing more harm than good. I’m not saying they’re wrong but that the reason people put behind them is.

Goals are meant to bring you a sense of fulfillment now and not at some point in the future. So, the key is not to have goals but to have — and cherish — one’s present moments. Now, let’s take a look at what can be done to counter this situation and to live “in the now.”