On a road to nowhere

Do you sometimes feel like you can never win—like no matter how hard you work, someone keeps moving the finish line?

Growth-focused leaders often feel this way.

As driven individuals, we tend to be overly critical about how things are going, or about the results that a certain project achieved.

This is because aspirational people often get bogged down in pursuing perfection. Even though we do great things, we look at our progress and wonder what could have gone better.

We also have a terrible habit of moving the finish line ourselves, even as we wonder why it shifted in the first place. Once we get close to an established goal, we increase the load to achieve “just a little bit” more with every push.

This creates a scenario where we never accomplish the original goal. (How could we, if we later make it impossible to do so?)

The next time you catch yourself doing this, take a look at how far you have come in relation to the race you initially created for yourself. You’ll discover that you set out to run a marathon—but have unwittingly come hundreds of miles without ever stopping.

Ambition is one thing—and I wouldn’t talk anyone out of it. But don’t forget—there’s nothing wrong with breaking the tape more often in future races.

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