January 31st, 2010

I’m not sure how you feel about traveling, but I really love it. I think it’s exciting to travel somewhere new, whether near or far, it doesn’t matter. I can’t wait to arrive at the destination I have set off to get to. If you feel like I do you know that once you reach your destination you feel great like you have accomplished something.

But you and I both know that you don’t start out on a journey just to get somewhere. Instead it is all the things that are offered after you have arrived that are so important. But I’ll be honest, once I get to wherever I’m going I can’t wait to just relax and chill out, and I feel like I need to be still. The problem is that every time I do this I lose that excitement I felt to get to that particular destination. I think about long road trips with my family growing up or long flights across the country, and I feel like every time I arrive I say “Whew!” and want to lay down. And it isn’t ‘til I begin to remember my purpose for being there that I become excited again.

The problem is that once I’ve made up my mind that I’ve arrived, my body begins to relax and lose its edge. I personally think this happens in life as well. Once we feel like we’ve “arrived” we’re setting ourselves up to lose our motivation, lose our edge and ultimately lose our excitement.

It happens all the time…people feel like they have arrived. They have arrived at the job they wanted. They have arrived in a relationship they have dreamed about. They have arrived at a certain point financially they always hoped for. There are so many other stages of life that one feels like they have arrived.

But this is the wrong way to think.

You really should think that you have not arrived yet. Yes, I know that sounds strange and counter intuitive to what we have all been taught. You see, once you reach a certain goal life doesn’t stop, and we have to keep living and pushing ourselves. I know this sounds challenging, but once you have arrived you lose the hunger to push yourself over the obstacles that are in your way to achieve the success you desire. Once you have arrived it honestly doesn’t become easier, instead it becomes harder because you have to be able to push yourself to maintain where you are. And if you want to move from one stage to another you have to work even harder. If you never arrive you are constantly pushing and striving. You are being creative and always believing that you are going to get where you want to get to.

I challenge you to think about areas in your life where you think you have arrived and then ask yourself if you’re working harder on those things than other things in your life. I hope that you can develop the mind set that you really never arrive…that your dreams, goals, and desires are so great that you’re constantly striving to reach them. Only then will you be the most productive and make the greatest impact. In your relationships, force yourself to continue to strive to know those individuals on a deeper level; constantly learning and growing with them…don’t arrive. In your business, set new bottom line goals, create a better product, enhance your relationship with your clients….don’t arrive. If you arrive you give your competitors time to catch you because you’re not setting a new bar height…don’t arrive. Instead, set new standards.

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