Are the primary goals which are being met going to take me to the next level

Even when the engine is still running and the vehicle is making progress that does not mean it is always going where you expect it to. Anyone who has ever hit a patch of ice in the middle of the road knows how easily bearing and heading can change to different courses and leave the driver in the precarious position of trying to get them back on a parallel path.

When driving on ice, it can be very easy to slip and the results can be devastating. But how is that relevant to success and failure? Let’s examine the situation again. You want to get from point “A” to point “B” and are driving there. Along the way you hit a patch of ice. Many people will panic as soon as they realize what is happening. The initial thought is almost always to hit the brakes and stop all forward progress. Unfortunately, a lot of people actually follow through on that thought and the results can be much more than just detrimental.

As soon as they hit the brakes and attempt to stop any forward motion they lose all control of the vehicle. While they may still be heading in the direction they want to go in, the car may be facing in a different direction altogether. There is no way to steer and no way to control where you will end up.

There can be a number of different results in such cases, but rarely is it anything that can be called a success. Rather than trying to stop immediately the moment the realization hits that they are not in complete control, simply slowing down and taking a foot off the accelerator will allow the operator to maintain at least minimal control and usually pass the obstacle with little more than a couple of new white hairs.

Likewise, on the road to success, there are many obstacles and some of them are not so easy to see until you are already in the middle of them and it is too late to do anything about them except slow down and try to get through them. Panicking will cause more problems than it solves. Trying to completely stop and get it together may make the situation a whole lot worse, so what are the only other options?

Plan your route carefully. This does not mean that you will never hit any obstacles; they are a fact of life and sometimes must be passed to get to the next level. However, if you know that you are going to be driving across icy bridges or in dangerous areas, make sure you know what to look for.

Is this the only way to go to get to the desired destination? If there are alternative means of succeeding without the added risks and dangers than those routes should always be considered first. That does not mean that the easy way is always the best or most sure route, only that all of the avenues that are open to you should be explored carefully.

Having all of the relevant information on hand will allow you to make better decisions and have better judgment when it comes time to travel the road. Being prepared and knowing what to expect on each leg of the journey will help you to avoid the ice whenever it is possible and react in a more productive manner when you do hit the obstacles that you already know that you will be facing.

Even so, that is still not taking all of the factors into consideration. Where was our driver headed for instance? In this particular case, the driver was heading for a ski resort. Whether or not that was the place they hoped to have their date, we do not know. We know only that they hit a patch of ice and tried to stop. Alas, they never got where they were going.

Was it possible to get there at all though? Had they bothered to reevaluate their goals, their destination in this case, they would have discovered that the roads were closed before they got where they were going anywhere. However, since they were making forward progress, they viewed it as a success.

Given the fact that they were still heading in the right direction, even when the vehicle was facing the wrong way, they considered this to be a success. A little more thorough examination would have quickly revealed in this instance, that they were struggling for nothing.

Killing yourself literally or figuratively in an attempt to reach a destination that cannot be reached is the ultimate definition of an exercise in futility. This person was setting themselves up for a journey with no possible outcome except utter and complete failure. Had they constantly reevaluated their situation, their destination and the means by which they could traverse the journey, they may have realized that it was either not worth it or at the very least found a more likely way to reach the final destination.