Summary: While there is merit in setting goals and achieving them one step at a time, Rohit Gupta believes that being preoccupied with goals can be overwhelming and limiting. Read on to learn about his different approach to life.

"You have a choice in your action but you do not have any choice about the result" - Dr. Sharma, Shantikunj Haridwar

A few years back I read this in a book. I started running at the age of 38 and to start with I was not diligent about it. I was focused on running a certain distance every day and that was not motivating. Moreover, running on the treadmill was monotonous for me. This changed the very day when I started running outdoors and savoured the experience not as a goal but as a journey. I started enjoying the faces of people and the new locations which I would run through.

Earlier in my life, I was always thinking what the next goal is and this became an everyday habit. Having goals and populating a checklist was routine. This often made me overwhelmed and made me feel like an underachiever. It was like pushing myself into some corner with all the goals around me, leaving me with no clear direction in which to move. Every goal looks like a mirror, you never know which is the best reflection of yours and in such a situation what happens is you go nowhere and you remain stuck in a place in which life is in limbo.

You are the result of your parent’s good karma, but they had no real choice on the actual result. You are the best they could have. But did they have a choice whether you were going to be a girl or a boy? They had no choice whether it’s going to be a single child or twins, with dark or brown hair. Even though there has been a lot of research and development but still one can’t accurately predict the exact features or gender of a child.

Imagine for a second - when you start your journey in a car and you have a goal in your mind but while you are travelling that goal sometimes vanishes and you focus on the speedometer, on the gears, on the steering and obviously the music/talk show playing in your car. The destination is out of focus. In such a scenario, as a driver, I now enjoy the driving experience, a cup of coffee, jazz music, the warmth of my car, the smile of a loved one. How anxiety inducing would it be if I just kept thinking of ‘I have to reach my destination’.

Detaching from the results makes life so easy, which is contradictory to the management theory of the western world which says keep focusing on your goals. This theory keeps testing your willpower and even if finally you achieve the goal, you feel drained out.

So, friends, my take is, whatever you want to do just have a little thought around your goal, start walking towards it and then simply focus on your walk, the very next two steps and that would for sure make your journey enjoyable, full of fun. You keep learning, becoming more ‘agile’. Software developers these days are also following the practice of agile development.

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