Pathwalking 40
What happens when you finally reach your goal?
What do you do when you have walked your path, and discover that, in fact, the got to where you were aiming to go?
I will be happy to tell you when I manage to get there. It has not happened for me yet.
However, I can speculate, based on numerous truths that one must take into account with regards to life in general, and based on what I am learning as I continue to walk my own path.
These are the things one does when the goal of walking this path is achieved:
Celebrate. First off, achievement of the goal deserves a celebration. Whether the goal was to reach an ideal weight, land the ideal job, earn a million dollars, marry the love of your life, graduate school or what-have-you – you absolutely deserve to take a moment and bask in your success. Celebrate the accomplishment, celebrate the victory.
Reflect. Take a moment to look at how you have gotten here. What were the good parts of the journey? How about the bad? What would you have done differently? How has reaching the end-goal of the journey changed you? What made the walk along this path easier, harder, simpler and more complex?
Express Gratitude. Very importantly – be grateful! Showing gratitude for what you have managed to achieve is hugely important. It is impossible to continue to gain success if you are not grateful for what you have now. So be thankful for your friends, your mentors, your companions. Be thankful for the opportunities that helped make reaching this goal possible. Heap praise on everyone and everything that you can, and express the immense gratitude for the end of this particular path.
Celebrate. Reflect. Express gratitude. Last, but not least, rest.
Rest. Allow yourself a moment to rest. Pathwalking can sometimes be exhausting, and it can take quite the mental, emotional, and possibly even physical toll. Take a moment to rest. You have achieved what you set out upon the path to achieve. You have won. As mentioned before, rest is necessary to recharge your batteries, reenergize your base.
Resting is important, but you need to be careful not to confuse a rest with an ending. The phrase “resting on your laurels” comes to mind – sure, great, you’ve accomplished something – is that all you are going to do is point out how great it was and how hard it was and then do nothing more?
Pathwalking is not a singular action. Pathwalking is not meant to be just a one-time occurrence. Pathwalking is a lifestyle choice. Pathwalking is taking action, making choices, and being accountable and responsible for your life and all that you gain and lose in it. Which is why the next step is in many respects the most important in this process.
Choose the next goal. I have long said that one of the key things that keeps us young, keeps us going is learning. There is always something new that can be achieved, something new that can be learned, a new goal to move towards.
Certainly you should be happy that you have walked this path and reached this goal, but this is not the end. This was the first. It should not be the last. Life is a river – it flows around, over, under, and through things. Rivers can shape the earth, but they can also simply meander along. You can either go with the flow, or you can choose to swim, or to shape and redirect the river. Pathwalking is about choice. Pathwalking is about action.
As such, there is always going to be a new goal, a new choice, a new path to be taken. There is always something more, something else you can do, somewhere else you can journey to. A new goal to aim for. A new path to be walked.
Pathwalking is not simply about the goal – it is about the journey. Pathwalking is all about the deliberate choices we make and actions we take along this journey. Pathwalking is about doing what you can to choose the life you want to lead, rather than letting life make the choices for you. As such, there will always be new paths to be walked, new goals to be had, new discoveries to be made.
Yes, I admit that I have not succeeded yet in my own goals with regards to the path I am walking. But I am choosing this path, and working every day to live life as I would choose, rather than let my life live me. There are easier days, and harder days, but knowing that I have all that I do, and knowing that this life is the result of the choices I am making brings me a level of contentment I have always wanted.
I will continue with Pathwalking, until I reach the goals I have now, and then on to the next. And the next. And the next. I will be choosing the path and taking actions to walk it all of my life. That might sound hard – but I believe it is a far better, and more worthwhile option that just letting my life be dictated by forces far outside my control.
There may be endings, but they will only lead to new beginnings. And that, I believe, is one of the great things about life. It is also a key aspect of Pathwalking. Life changes. Goals change. Paths change. What doesn’t change is our ability to make choices and take actions, and seek and find our own destinies.
Do you see that the choice of paths to walk is virtually infinite?
This is the fortieth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
Follow me here!
