Enjoy the Journey

Recently several things have happened in my life that brings to mind the following advice.

Enjoy the journey because you don’t always reach the destination.

First let’s talk football. My son’s football team has been highly rated all season. They only lost once during the regular season. The playoffs started with 2 relatively easy wins and the team that had beaten them during the regular season got upset and they remained as the highest seated team left in the field.

In Nebraska football is King and my son, his friends and all us fans where only 2 games removed from reaching the finals. In Nebraska we play the finals at Memorial stadium. The object is of course to win it all but just making the finals means playing at the home of the Huskers. Playing at Memorial Stadium is a childhood dream of most people in Nebraska. Just the thought of playing on that historic field puts a smile on the face of nearly every player. (And to be honest I think most parents dreamed of having their son play at Memorial Stadium.)

On Tuesday they lost. The team that beat them was a very good team that had also only lost once on the season but we were the higher seed. It was an upset. It was upsetting. Our dreams were over. For many on the team it would be the last time they ever played an organized football game. Combining all those elements made the moment very emotional.

I hope all the players (and fans) enjoyed the journey because if they didn’t enjoy the journey what is the point, you often don’t end up where you thought you end.

Life is just going to be full of disappoint if you need to see all your dreams come true in order to be happy.

And if you give up on hoping and dreaming you end up with an extremely sad life. Things don’t always work out.

Enjoy the journey because you don’t always reach the destination.

Even something as trivial as purchasing a lottery ticket is about the journey. I seldom buy lottery tickets. I understand that my chances of winning are lower than getting hit by lightning twice and completely out of my control. (Except for the getting hit by lightning part, there are things I can do to increase my chances to get hit by lightning. Things like sitting outside in storms or climbing to the top of tall things and grasping metal during storms. The lottery has none of those types’ things.)

But when the jackpot hits $250 million dollars nearly everybody enjoys thinking about what they would do with the money if they won. In fact it is hard not to come upon a conversation about that exact subject when the jackpots get near record levels.

Enjoy the journey because you don’t always reach the destination.

Life is full of other examples. I am sure you can come up with your own.

Another place to apply the “enjoy the journey” advice is at work.

As we go about our days at work we are looking for continuous improvement in all we do. It is how we stay competitive. In order to be successful in business it is important to have good systems in place for how we do things.

Once you find an efficient method you need to use that method. The Japanize word for continuous improvement is Kaizen and it is the key to staying on the cutting edge. Because once you think have perfected something it is important that are open to more improvements. Technology, tools, the people involved and many other factors mean that what works best today is likely to be improved upon in the very near future.

At work we are on a continuous path (journey) toward finding a better way. We never reach the finish line.
That means to keep from going crazy we need to celebrate our victories and successes along the way but we can ever think we have perfected something. If we do we will be passed by our competition. We can’t afford to let our competition pass us by because that will put us out of business. (In our home lives it is no big deal.)

Enjoy the journey because you don’t always reach the destination.

It is a hard concept to explain in a blog. If you would like more information I would strongly suggest reading Jason Jennings “The Reinventors.” In the book he outlines “how extraordinary companies pursue radical continuous change.”