I have created a digital planner that I use on my iPad, in a note taking app called Goodnotes, which is a hybrid of all the things I look for in a journal. I have taken bits and pieces from hard bound journals that I like, and that were available via .pdf, and I have built one that works for me. If you have read any of my emails over the last few years…I am pretty quirky. So don’t copy me, but I really resonate, if you are a daily planner or journal user, with the ability to assemble the pages in the order I prefer, move pages around at will, drop in notes pages, or worksheets or forms that I use, right in the flow of my work.
But I am not writing about digital journals today, but rather the quote that was on my workflow page this morning (a digital page from the 90x planner if you were wondering). The quote by Zig Ziglar was,
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
I am not sure why that one (there is literally one quote every day for 90 days) in particular stopped me in my tracks but it did.
I took a moment and looked back at my achievements, and failures, and pursuits, over the years. I am pretty goal-oriented (thus all this crazy digital journal stuff in the first place), but I am a frequent victim of what Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach describes as “the gap.” The propensity to always be looking too far ahead, and never appreciating what you achieve, when you achieve it, because you are on to the next big idea.
This is “living in the gap,” the gap being the difference between your reality and the ideal.
A classic mistake by entrepreneurs and many others as well.
But this Ziglar quote caused me to rethink how I have been shaped by the pursuit. I have the biases, the ideas, and the deep-seated beliefs I have today because I set out on a goal-driven path. I learned, suffered, bled, and celebrated during the pursuit of what I thought I really wanted. Many times right, more times probably not right, but always in pursuit.
Pursuit brings growth, growth brings knowledge, knowledge brings wisdom, and wisdom brings confidence and desirability.
So yeah Zig, right on! I agree completely and thanks for reminding me today. I actually needed a kick in the ass and magically, as almost always, this quote appeared.
Cheers to the pursuit, and win or lose, you are growing!
John
Founder of the align5 Companies, CEO of Scaling Up Coaches, and Serial Entrepreneur
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