Living life on earth requires us to do things and move forward. We often see that children are more curious than adults. Growing up, our life experiences make us rigid and we lose our child-likeness. We focus more on work and getting paid. Which is a good thing because you do need money for even the basic necessities.
When you first start work, saving a part of it to buy an expensive watch or a fancy gadget might feel so satisfying. As you get used to the ‘high’ of buying things, you want more.
Sometimes, you have to wait for years to achieve your goal. Take my example of wanting to buy a mini-Cooper. I’ve had that dream for several years before it materialised. But, what now?
We live in a time where anything is possible. You have the freedom to work from anywhere, travel the world, and even start a business from your laptop.
Quite often, we set goals – to move up the career ladder or to buy things like cars and gadgets or a house. Some goals are easier to achieve than others. If you excel at what you do, getting that job promotion is easy. If you are good at saving, buying your first house is also going to be easy.
My question to you is what happens after you achieve your goal? For the first few days, you will be on a ‘high’ of having achieved it. Then, you feel like you are not doing anything. For others, you set another goal straight away and start working towards it.
Here are two things I’ve learned.
Lesson #1: Enjoy the journey
It is important to enjoy your journey towards achieving your goals rather than just look forward to achieving the goal itself. For without the travel, you will not reach your destination. Often, planning a trip brings more joy than the trip itself. You take the time to find a travel destination, a place to stay (hotel Vs AirBnB), look up places to see and restaurants to eat, book tickets – those things you do – that journey is very exciting even before you actually reach the place.
Similarly, in life, whatever you set as your goal, enjoy the journey. The ups and downs are all a part of it. So, choose your goal wisely.
Lesson #2: Celebrate the achievement
If you are anything like me, once I achieve my goal, I set another one and start working towards it straight away. This is not good. You need to stop and celebrate. Your brain needs to register that you have actually worked hard and got something you desired. This creates positive neural loops that will encourage you to work harder when the going gets tough.
For me, with my mini cooper, I am enjoying every single trip in my car – for a long time to come!
How do you plan to enjoy your next achievement?
