Choosing a Destination for Your Journey
In my first introduction post, I covered what a personal development journey is. Now, you’re ready to take the first step on that journey, and that is choosing a destination.
Every journey needs a destination. That goes especially for a personal journey. If you aren’t focused on a specific goal, you will likely spend a lot of time wandering in the Waste. This is a barren place where you make little progress because you’ve lost your focus.
A personal development journey is a journey you go on to reach a specific goal in order to experience personal growth.
Your journey should have just one destination
I believe that the quickest way we can experience personal growth and become our best selves by focusing on one main goal.
When you first get into personal development, you may be tempted to try to change many things at once. You may be unsatisfied with many areas of your life, so you decide to go after 10 different goals, such as a fitness goal, a money goal, a relationship goal, and a spiritual goal.
However, if a journey has ten destinations, you likely will end up confused and not make much progress on any. It is the equivalent of hanging out at a crossroads with 10 different paths before you! Maybe one day you make progress on one goal, and the next you make progress on another. But it becomes impossible to go on so many journeys at once, and inevitably, you would feel you aren’t making much progress.
Now, imagine if there were only one destination and one path ahead. Every day, you could put forth all of your effort towards this one main goal. Think about how much farther you would get in the same amount of time.
Your destination should be visible in the real world
While I write in metaphor about the personal journey, your destination should exist in the real world. If your journey is too abstract, it will be hard for you, or anyone else, to tell if you’ve gotten anywhere. The action you take should be visible and your progress should be measurable. You should be able to point to something tangible to show your progress.
Examples of personal journey projects
Creating a blog (like this one)
Starting a business
Getting a degree
Doing an exercise program
Losing weight
Creating art
Knitting or making other crafts
Writing a novel
Recording a podcast
Running a YouTube channel
Learning an instrument
Learning a language
Performing a stand-up comedy routine
Doing Yoga Teacher Training
Taking 100 portraits of strangers
Creating a vegetable or permaculture garden
Recording an album
Creating a video game
There are so many possibilities. Hopefully, this list has sparked some ideas for you.
Action step
Spend some time brainstorming ideas, filling a full sheet of paper. Then, review your list and narrow down on a project that speaks to you the most. And now, we will spend some time refining it further.
Know why you’re setting out on a journey
Your journey should call to you in some way. It can be something you’ve always thought about doing, something you’ve been putting off for quite a while.
I believe that going on a personal journey helps you become your true, authentic self. And I believe that the world benefits when more people are leaning into who they really are. Your journey may inspire or entertain others. People will see that you are showing up and taking action, and will want to try something too.
Maybe your journey will help people more concretely as well. Maybe you decide to knit blankets for charity, for example.
How will your journey improve the world, even in a small way?
Action Step
Write down 5 reasons for going on a journey. Put this list somewhere you will see it often, and look at it any time you are feeling discouraged.
Make your destination specific and measurable
There should be a concrete number tied to your project. Maybe it is X amount of revenue from a business, X amount of YouTube videos, or X amount of pounds lost. For example, for “Creating art”, you can make the goal “Create 300 abstract paintings”. For “learning an instrument”, your goal can be to learn how to play a new song a week.
Action step
Take your project and make it concrete and measurable. This will give your journey more direction and help you know if you’ve succeeded.
Make your destination challenging and ambitious
Your goal should not be easy. It should be something that you have a hard time imagining your current self being able to accomplish.
Action Step
Review your goal. Does your goal feel realistic and easy? If so, I challenge you to increase it. Amp it up until it no longer feels comfortable. This means that in order to reach this goal, you will have to grow and stretch. This is how you will experience real personal growth.
Give your destination a deadline
Every journey needs a time limit to stop it from feeling aimless. I recommend having the deadline for your journey be one year from now. That is a long enough period for real growth, without being too long. A year can be further broken down into 3-month quarters that have milestones, or smaller goals, on the way.
Action step
Write down the date one year from now that will be the deadline for your goal. Now write down the end date of each 3-month quarter on the way. Then, next to each date, write down a smaller milestone that you can work towards during that period. The milestones will help you evaluate your progress, and make adjustments, as you go.