The achievement of our goals is like setting the destination on a GPS system. The GPS system needs only 2 coordinates to give you directions to your destination:

Where you are
Where you are going.
I really like this analogy and would like to address this month's Champions' E-zine article to setting your direction in order to achieve your goals. What follows are some analogies that I would like to make on how goal achievement is like programming your GPS system.

Don't judge yourself and past mistakes
When you get off track, your GPS system reorients you with the right directions without judgment. It doesn't analyze why you are off course, it doesn't care why you are off course. It doesn't ask you how long you have been lost or how many wrong turns you have taken. It just recalibrates and gets you back on track. The same is true of reaching your goals. You may have made some serious misjudgments about some of the steps that you needed to take for reaching your business and personal goals. You may feel that you have followed your business plan and you are still heading in the wrong direction. All of this may be true, but the reality is that it doesn't matter what the reason is that you are heading in the wrong direction. It is in the past. To put it bluntly - it's over – it's done - don't beat yourself up and don't pass judgment – just reorient yourself. Learn from your mistakes and proceed again towards your goal. Many times my clients have found that what is perceived as a bad decision or a bad break has actually given them the inspiration to try something new. They find that they have learned a great deal from the experience and that experience has been valuable to them and to their business.

Begin where you are and move forward – (that is all you can do)
The first coordinate that the GPS needs is where you are in order to determine the exact steps that you need to take to get to where you are going. The same is true with the attainment of your business goals. You can only begin from where you are. You may wish that you were in a different place or that you were further along the way, but you can only start your trip from the exact point of where you are. You can't program in a trip from Washington DC to Orlando Florida and be frustrated that after driving for a very long time that you have just crossed the Georgia state line. You can only begin where you are, you can only progress as fast as you are capable of and you need to be happy with the progress that you are making along the way. You will get there soon enough.

Detours
Once the GPS is programmed there will be numerous course adjustments that it will make along the way. There will be detours due to road construction or accidents. You may have made some miscalculations or made some mistakes with the attainment of your business goals. These miscalculations are frustrating, but they are also gifts. They give you the information that you need to recalibrate in your business plan. So just reprogram your GPS and go forward. There is no way you can anticipate every road block that you would encounter along the way. There is no way you can predict things that are out of your control. Sometimes you can't even predict how things will go when they are in your control. Just recalculate – all you can do is react to what is in front of you. Some who have encountered many detours feel discouraged and feel that they don't want to try again. Don't let the detours ever change your end goal.

Crystal Clear
You have to know the exact address of where you are going in order to get there. You can't program the GPS system to take you in some general direction. For example, you wouldn't ask the GPS to get you someplace north of where you are. The address that you program has to be precise; just as it is with your goals. The amount of new clients, new revenues, and new business has to be specific. You have to know where you going. Your intentions also have to be precise. Your goal has to be defined and purposeful.

It doesn't matter where you are with reference to your goals. It doesn't matter if you are a little off track or way off course. Keep your eye on your destination, reprogram, recalibrate and full speed ahead. You will get there before you know it.

Good luck to you on your journey to success.