How's Your Navigation?

Life can be a lot like a road map. It's easier to get to our destination or goals with clear and precise directions. I doubt anyone likes the unexpected twists and turns that cause our travel time to take longer. Most people prefer to be direct. Our time is limited. If we have a goal in life, we most likely want to get there and feel accomplished sooner, rather than later. Detours make us change our path and often delay us. Sometimes, if we don't know exactly where we are going, we can easily get off track or even lost.

When driving some place new do you check your GPS for directions? Last week the map portion of my car's navigation system stopped working. In spite of the fact that prior to my current car I'd never had a navigation system, I suddenly felt vulnerable. What if I needed to know if a side street went through to a main street? What if I wanted to know how much further I needed to drive to get to where I was going? What if there was an accident and I needed to come up with an alternate route?

 

Cars and traveling aside, have you ever felt this kind of vulnerability in your life? Are you more productive going after your goals if you have a well-planned outline to follow? Do you think better on the fly with the twists and turns that come with unplanned detours? Are you good at tweaking your approach on any given day if needed? Basically ... do you function well without your life maps?

 

Have you found yourself getting off course lately?

Finding Our Own Direction

 
A few weeks ago I was invited to write a motivational post for 'Entirely Women' as part of their '52 Real Women' weekly series. I was honored to contribute to this inspirational women's website. For any of you who may have missed the post, here it is.

 

 

 

When we were younger, even as far back as junior high, we were given aptitude and career tests. They’re supposed to help us figure out what we should do as a career and what we will study in college. But let’s be honest, how many of us knew at age 13 what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives? Not too many I’d bet.

Sometimes we have to endure trial and error before we can figure out our paths and direction. Most often it’s all part of an ongoing journey. I am 51 (at least for a few more days) and I’m still redefining what the ‘rest of my life’ will look like.

We all have dreams and aspirations. Sometimes we feel like we’ll never get there and that the dreams are too big for us or just out of our reach. We’ll have supporters in our corner that encourage us to ‘go for it’ and to ‘keep trying’; but often times we’ll also have people telling us that we’re crazy, that we should be happy with what we have and leave it at that.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it when people tell me I can’t do something, especially if it’s something I feel passionate about or something I just don’t feel ready to give up on. If I have the heart and the will to keep trying for something; whether it’s a new job, a relationship, or a better and healthier lifestyle – then I’m going to keep trying. People may think I’m wasting my time, but that’s just it … it’s MY time and MY effort. Why should they care if I fail? Sometimes we have to falter in our initial attempts at greatness before we can truly decipher where we want to go and what we want to do. I think it’s all part of the process. Sure it would be quicker and easier if our lives fell right into place all the time without any complications or mistakes, but it’s those hurdles (and getting over them) that help define our character.

Whatever your dreams or aspirations are, I encourage you to keep going for them. Give them everything you have until you have nothing else to give. Who knows where the journey will take you and what important lessons you’ll have to share with others once you get there.