Living a life focused on accomplishing is a good thing, except when you are trying to accomplish so much, so fast, that you forget to appreciate and enjoy the right now.

I have been a driven person since I was a little girl.  I have always been a goal setter and I have always been incredibly motivated to accomplish my goals.  And that quality has served me well in my life.  But there has also been a danger to my being so driven all the time, and that is the fact that in my quest to accomplish each goal I sometimes forget to enjoy the process of accomplishing the goal…I often forget to enjoy the journey…“When I get this done, when that gets finished, when I complete this, when I have done that”….For much of my life I have been so focused on accomplishing each goal that I have often forgot to celebrate life along my way.  Many times I haven’t allowed myself to feel enjoyment until each task is completed, and in doing that I have missed moments of joy that I could have experienced along my way.

The best analogy I can think of to explain it is to say it’s as if I have been driving in races (I was going to say running in races, but let’s be honest, I hate to run 🙂 ) where I have raced passed incredible displays of beauty without noticing them because they were alongside the race track instead of sitting at the finish line.  I have allowed myself to miss out on breathtaking views because my eyes were so totally focused straight ahead that I didn’t see them.   And at the time I thought that was the right thing to be doing to stay focused straight ahead – my intentions were correct, but my execution was flawed – yes it was good for me to stay focused on the path ahead, but the reality is that I could have still noticed the beauty around me without having to give up the race…I could have appreciated my surroundings of each moment while I was driving and still kept myself moving ahead…

I am still a HUGE believer in setting goals and accomplishing them – I don’t ever want that to change – but I do recognize that I need to do better at enjoying each moment along the way as I work to accomplish my goals, allowing myself to feel the joy in the journey itself instead of only celebrating at each finish line.

Another mistake we often make in life is to wish today away…we wish it would be ____ already, or we wish ____ would hurry up and get here.  While it is good to have things to look forward to, we need to be careful not to let our focus on something we are looking forward to take away our appreciation for the day we are living today.  The future is going to come…it always does…so let go of wishing it were here right now and focus instead on what is actually happening right now.  Perhaps right now can be glorious too.  Perhaps it will be even better.  You’ll never know unless you give it a chance.  So look around…take it all in….appreciate the beauty and the people…live this moment to the fullest.

This week’s challenge is to do better at enjoying each moment of life as you journey through it and celebrating every step toward the finish line.

~Amy