Source: sethskim.com
We all have goals, whether we are aware of them or not. We might want to get a certain degree, a certain amount of wage per month, a healthy body, or a warm connection with the family. Also, these goals usually change because of the impact of different circumstances. We all wanted to be pilots, sailors or supermans that would travel the world, or save it from the evil, but at some point we gave up from those ideals and stick to something else instead. We did not continue to climb the mountain that we thought in the beginning, but we chose other mountains.
Reaching a goal is like climbing a mountain, where you have a fixed point you wish to reach and there are different pathways towards it and different occurrences might appear. You might get tired, or you might stumble upon different stones that might make it difficult for you to walk. You might get hungry, or afraid that a bear might suddenly appear and swallow you in a moment. The basecamp that you have in the ground might be too far to reach when it starts raining. These and other things might make it difficult for you to reach the top of the mountain and because of that, you choose another mountain that is a bit easier.
Similarly, you have goals that might be difficult to achieve that you give up trying. You might get tired, frustrated or might be afraid to take another step forward because you might get fired, or you are afraid to fail and that a “bear” can suddenly knock you down. I agree that it is better if you start to climb smaller mountains in the beginning, learn from the experiences and systematically increase the height of the mountains that you choose to climb. In other words, you might want to break your goal into smaller sub-goals which are easier to reach and can give you a faster feedback, which you can use as a source of learning, that might help you in the future. These lessons might be as footholds that you put during your last expedition before turning back to the basecamp. They might not only help you reach other goals, but might also help solve complex problems. Then, when you reach a goal, you might want to set another one. Climb another mountain.
If you have already read some of my previous articles in this blog, you might get the impression that I like to use analogies to simply fill up my blog with some content and then mentioning it later to other people. Though it is true at some point, I usually tend to write these articles as advice dedicated to myself that would probably benefit the others as well. Moreover, analogies are one of the main tools that top memory athletes use to memorize things and also, analogies might greatly serve as a means that make the process of understanding easier.
