Having a Destination AND the Drive to get there

In preparation of running for National Office, I've been doing a little bit of soul searching to really find out what makes me happy, why I want to serve the FFA for another year, and what skills I can develop to help me do so. At one of our conferences this past year our trainer, Andrew McCrea, was a past national officer who is now a well known public speaker and radio show host for "American Countryside". He gave each of us a book that he wrote, entitled, "Making Molehills out of Mountains". I've had it since December but came upon it a week ago and began reading it. I had been missing out! This book has a lot of really neat insights on how to learn leadership strategies that reduce your work without reducing your goal, how to inspire individuals to personal and team success, and getting more out of life by making "quality investments" in family, faith, work, and friends.

I came across a section that really struck me for some reason, so I thought I'd share it. He started out with a story about accidentally taking the wrong road and heading miles and miles in the wrong direction in his upgraded rental Mustang. When he realized he was going the wrong way, he knew he had to turn around. It didn't matter how pretty the day was or how fast he could go in the convertible, the only thing he would accomplish would be heading farther in the wrong direction if he didn't stop and get his bearings.

He says, "Yet, in real life, we sometimes don't give as much thought to our destination. We might fail to turn around.

The destination and the drive must go together. If you have a destination without the drive, you will have goals to achieve, but you will never see those dreams fulfilled. If life were about just the drive, you would develop skills that would make you an effective and efficient leader, but you would never be headed toward achieving any specific goal.

Think about it: If life were about just the drive, you would have been given the tools to move as fast as possible in the exact opposite direction you needed to go!"

I think this is so true. So many times we have goals that we want to achieve, and have so much drive inside of us to do it, but if we don't sit down and think about how we are going to achieve them, we could very well be headed in the wrong direction.

Moral of the story: Set high goals AND give them direction!