You may not always achieve exactly what you set out to do. That does not mean you’ve failed. It means you found an unplanned success along the way.
How often do you set goals to achieve and to feel the success of completion to find yourself being derailed and not completing them? Some people would have the thought (or belief) they are a failure. How often do you push yourself through something even though you are hating every minute of it just to say you met the goal? How important is it to meet the “success” that others believe?
Here is a thought, what if, there are opportunities along the way that are presented to you to ease achieving the goal and to achieve success? What if these opportunities don’t look the way you think they should? I’m curious if there are times that we’ve learned all we need to and so there is no need to push through the rest just to say we completed it?
This can be very challenging when outside forces and influences are bearing down on you telling you a certain way to be and to live.
Some examples that come to mind.
- staying at a job that is killing your soul because that’s just what you are supposed to do.
- furthering your education and finding part-way through that it’s not what you really want to be doing.
- staying in a relationship, whether it be a friendship or romantic that you find draining or leaves you unhappy?
- Trying to do something new in your life and finding it uncomfortable or too challenging but keep doing it anyway.
Here’s the thinking, what if, the growth that you were to receive was completed part-way through the goal? You’ve learned the lessons that you set out to learn and staying in the situation any longer is wasting your time and energy? Growth and learning is not linear, it ebbs and flows.
Now, going a bit deeper into this. If you find yourself thinking, oh I’ve learned all the lesson’s I need to learn so I’m moving on, leaving the job, relationship, education and yet, the next place/person shows up with the same lesson that you THOUGHT you learned in the last place. You still learned what you needed to in the last place, but now that you’ve “leveled up” and are ready to view this lesson with deeper wisdom and understanding. You’ve not failed and are not a failure. You are expanding and growing in your human experience. Eventually the lesson will quit showing up for you because you’ve healed, learned and benefited from the experience.
Take time this week to observe your behaviors, and interactions. Think of the ways you used to handle these same interactions to see if you are stuck, blocked or moving along in your growth. Lots of good bits of things to ponder for the week!
