Designing Your Life: Journey Goals vs Habit Goals

 

Last week, we talked about Habit Goals in my last post, Redesign your Lifestyle with New Habits to Start a New Year. Habit goals are developing a new habit that if you do this habit routinely you will reach or maintain your goal. 

 

But what if doing the same thing each day won’t lead to your goal? 

What if there are multiple steps? Multiple milestones. This is a Journey Goal.

 

Before we launch into journey goals, it’s important to figure out what your goals are.

One morning on my sunrise walk, trudging along feeling overwhelmed. Just overwhelmed, with all that I had to do. Walking along, looking at the sidewalk and deep in thought. A little voice in my mind said, “Look up….hurry look up.” So I looked up into the sky and saw a huge hot air balloon rising up over the lake I was walking around. I watched it quietly and gently rise higher into the sky. I started to walk again and suddenly another balloon glided into my view. It was just as colorful and graceful as the first one that graced my eyes. Stopping and admiring the sight of two balloons in the air. I began walking again and a third balloon rose from the horizon, this time I was not surprised. While admiring the three beautiful balloons against the pink sky.  I heard the little voice again say, “All your ideas are beautiful, Kimberly but you can only launch one at a time.” 

 

So I went back to the idea notebook and I looked at all those ideas I had dumped in there. I landed on writing this book as a starting point for women entrepreneurs who like me may struggle with figuring out what to do next on their entrepreneurial journey.

Think of it this way: If you plan to take a road trip and want to get a car first, getting a car that can operate well in different terrains will allow you to take a number of different routes to your destination. Even though the destination doesn’t change, you might not want to take the interstate the whole time.

This line of reasoning is particularly important for young people. You are already expected to know what you want to do for a living when you are in high school, but many people change majors at least once while in college.
This is often seen as a problem because what you do for a living is seen as the goal, when the goal should really be living comfortably and being happy – a goal that is not limited by your profession. If you have a plan that is dedicated to eventually achieving financial independence, changing your major or your career path can be seen more as taking a new route rather than not knowing what the plan is.

Your Big Someday Goal Should Be A Little Vague

When considering your most important goals, it is important to make them somewhat vague. The grand-scheme of what we want for our lives isn’t likely to change too much over time, but how we expect to achieve it can change drastically. Of course, that’s okay, but it’s best to make plans that can fit different trajectories or roads to getting there.

Leave Room In Your Design to Change Roads

Of course, what career path you take isn’t the only way that your path toward your goals can change. Many people plan their lives as though they were the only person involved, which is never the case. You should be the focus of your life plan, but when designing your life, never forget that there are other people who can help you in any number of ways.

Include Family & Friends while Designing Your Life

Family may be able to offer financial support. Friends or romantic relationships may be able to offer emotional support. Teachers, bosses, mentors, and other figures can offer advice, access to new resources, or change the path that you take to reach your goals. Be careful about neglecting your loved ones while designing your life. It may seem like it allows you to have a clearer plan with fewer variables. After all, it’s easier to plan what you will do than it is to know what people you will run into or how they will impact your life. However, not allowing these sorts of influences into your life will mean passing up on opportunities and resources that can take you to your goal, even if it means taking an eraser to part of your life’s design plans.

Don’t Carve Your Map in Stone 

As in the previous section, the best thing to do is to never have your design plan set in stone. The important thing is keeping the main goal in sight and having a plan that will let you take the best route to that goal, even though you may not know the best roads to take when you sit down to make your plan. You may also find interesting places to stop along the way.