Where are you in your journey?

A common source of stress for many of the clients I’ve worked with is a sense of frustration with the idea that they aren’t yet where they want to be. It’s as though being on the journey of personal growth is somewhat of a failure simply because they aren’t at their destination. 

I’m all about metaphors, so let’s go with this image of “the journey.” We can think about our goals as points on the map. Whether we have to walk, drive, or fly, our job is to somehow find a way to reach our goals. Often I’ve found that many who are frustrated with not being where they want to be have actually been meeting many of their goals (or perhaps the objectives along the way to a bigger goal), but just like the song in the musical, “Hamilton,” they can never be satisfied. I think this is why it is important to distinguish the difference between our goals and our values. If our goals are points on the map, then our values are the direction. The goal might be St. Louis, but the value is east. We can reach St. Louis, but we can never reach east. As a matter of fact, you could circle the globe, but there is still more east to go. 

Folks that get frustrated with not being where they want to be are often so consumed with a long term goal that they don’t see the progress they’ve made along the way, and sometimes they may feel that the progress doesn’t count. The person who wants to beat an addiction or get more fulfillment from their relationships needs to understand that these are huge undertakings, not small goals. As a matter of fact, being fully present and vulnerable in our closest relationships or not being controlled by addictions actually sound more like values. If we choose to see these as our values we can make our choices according to what moves us in this direction. Why is this an important distinction? Because realizing that we are working toward a value that can never be fully achieved but can always be worked on removes the pressure. The choices we make in service of our values are the choices that feel most fulfilling because they are taking us in the direction that we want our life to go. If someone’s value is to not be controlled by addiction, they can have sobriety goals along the way, but each time they make a choice with their value in mind, they are taking a step in that direction. This means that they can have setbacks and still be working toward their values. We tend to feel most lost when we are moving in a different direction than our values, and dealing with setbacks is less overwhelming when we realize that we can always make the choice to turn back to the direction of our values. 

For most people, this way of looking at things could be helpful. Stephen Covey wrote a book called, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” This book was first published in 1989, but it holds up because it is all about identifying what is important to you and living accordingly. I highly recommend giving it a read. Unfortunately, even when they shift their mindset to a focus on values instead of goals, some people still continue to feel a sense of failure or that they aren’t good enough. This almost always comes down to something in their past. Usually the people that struggle the most with where they are on their journey have received the impression that they aren’t good enough from someone important to them. Often this person was a parent, but that isn’t always the case. This criticism can come from inside as well because some people have always been hard on themselves, but it is very easy for a person to tell themselves they aren’t good enough when they’ve been repeatedly hearing this from someone they love. Once this criticism becomes internal, it is very hard to get rid of. This negative voice is relentless. Speaking with a counselor is an important step in starting to understand where this voice came from, as well as learning how to fight back against it. A counselor can also help these individuals figure out what they needed to hear all along and learn to reassure the part of themselves that still has doubts. 

Self improvement is supposed to be a life long journey. I think that people are meant to keep growing as long as they are on this planet. We don’t just stop improving ourselves when we reach a certain age. What I would like for everyone who struggles with this internal critic to know is that we all have parts of ourselves that we wish to change–that we’re working on. If the answers were easy to find, we’d already have them. However, we shouldn’t get upset with ourselves for being on the journey. After all, how else would we ever reach a destination?