When Effort Becomes Your Enemy…

We all know the story of “The Little Engine Who Could”. We love the stories that remind us to never give up, never stop trying, achieve what you believe, etc. The great philosopher Rocky Balboa teaches us that life is not about how hard you can hit, but it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. The main idea in all of this is that if you try hard enough, nothing can stop you if you don’t give up. That sounds nice, but what if the trying hard is actually the problem:

Effort does not determine where you end up in life, DIRECTION does. You can give everything to climb the mountain, but what if it is the wrong mountain? Thomas Merton warned that, “People may spend their whole lives climbing the?ladder of success?only to find, once they reach the top, that the?ladder?is leaning against the?wrong?wall.” It is a scary reality that working hard and never quitting don’t guarantee success; they only guarantee that you will keep moving in the direction you are currently going. So, how do we make sure we are headed in the right direction to get us to where we want to land in the end? Here are 3 truths to help:

“People may spend their whole lives climbing the?ladder of success?only to find, once they reach the top, that the?ladder?is leaning against the?wrong?wall.” - Thomas Merton

Decisions Determine Direction

We cannot outrun our decisions. We cannot out maneuver our decisions. We cannot go back in time and change our decisions, so what CAN we do? We can begin now assessing our decision making processes. Am I making decisions with DIRECTION in mind or am I just making convenient decisions in the moment? Are the decisions that I am currently making pointing me in the direction of my desired destination? Did you know that a jet flying from Chicago to Japan has to constantly adjust flight patterns for multiple variables? A flight pattern off by 1 degree will land the jet nearly in Australia. That small 1 degree makes a huge difference over a long period of time. Consider that in our lives. If we allow small distractions in right now, they can completely change our direction over the course of our lives. This is such a big deal because we don’t tend to notice the small shifts in direction until it is too late: the student distracted from studying may not notice until the failing grade comes in, the husband distracted at work may not notice until the family is falling apart, the driver distracted by the text may not notice until the abrupt stop from colliding with another vehicle, the teenager distracted by the need for approval may not notice until he can’t recognize who he has become. Tiny, seemlingly harmless distractions can lead us to make poor decisions that alter the entire direction of our lives.

But, there is a way to avoid the regret of prolonged bad decision making or unintentional “directional drifting”.

Little Adjustments Make Big Differences

The key to staying on course for the desired destination is constant monitoring and adjusting. We must learn to assess our decisions and check the direction we are heading. This is not as hard or tedious as it sounds. One way to do this is with feedback from people we trust. We need to have people in our lives that we give permission to course correct for us. These people can speak into our lives when they see us veering off course. We tend to have blindspots or tunnel vision that prohibit us from seeing our true direction. It appears to us that we are heading straight, and perhaps we are, but what are we headed “straight” into is the question we must ask. Andy Stanley tells of a time that he and a friend took a shortcut to get home. They hopped onto a stretch of highway that was under construction, but it appeared to be finished. A few miles down the road another vehicle raced in front of them and stopped Stanley and his friend. It turns out that the unfinished road stopped a little ways ahead with a bridge in a swamp. Stanley was headed in the direction he wanted to go, but he needed to make some adjustments or he would not end up where he thought he was going. Isn’t this true for us? How often do we make decisions that we think are right, but they don’t take us where we thought they would? Or, how often do we make a “small” decision that sends us in an entirely different direction: that first puff of the cigarette that leads to a battle with lung cancer, that first glance back that leads to an affair, that first episode of?FRIENDS?that leads to a full NETFLIX 7 day binge, that first dive into the ice cream that ends with an empty half-gallon container and some guilt and shame as we cry ourselves to sleep. This is why we need people to help us course correct.

We also need to establish clear values. Values become habits if we practice them long enough and believe them deeply enough. Our values are the guard rails that keep us on track for the desired destination. If we consistently assess our decisions against our values, we can make the regular, minor adjustments that will help us avoid major setbacks and disappointments. Think about your desired destination. What values do you need to get to that place in life? What habits do you need to create to help you? Make the necessary adjustments now to avoid working really hard and ending up where you didn’t want to go.

Don’t Be Afraid to Quit

This sounds like bad advice, but that is because we allow the negative connotations of “quit” to dictate our perspective. There are many things in life that we need to quit before they make shipwreck of us. We need to quit the bad habits. We need to quit making excuses. We need to quit blaming ourselves and other people. We need to quit taking the easy way out. We need to quit following the status quo. We need to quit believing lies. We need to quit seeking comfort and convenience. We need to quit working so much that we lose sight of what really matters. We need to quit sacrificing our relationships on the altar of career success. We need to quit spending more money than we have. We need to quit blaming our teachers for our unwillingness to learn. We need to quit busying ourselves with more than we can accomplish because then we feel like failures. We need to quit making promises to ourselves and other people that we just can’t keep. We need to quit cutting line at Target. We need to quit hurrying everywhere we go. We need to quit saying we value the things that our decisions contradict. We need to quit starting over and learn to make minor adjustments along the way.

We need to quit saying we value the things that our decisions contradict.

If we learn to quit the bad habits and replace them with habits aligned with our values, we will make better decisions. If we begin making better decisions, we will head in a better direction. Remember, it is not about how much effort you put into life that determines where you end up, it is about making the right decisions over and over and over and over that will get you to the desired destination.

What adjustments do you need to make? What decisions are you making that keep you in the right direction?