Finding Joy in the Journey…Rather than just the Destination
If success came without the hard work and experiences, would we be as valuable of an asset to ourselves and others?
In an interview with Ranveer Allahbadia on his YouTube channel BeerBiceps, Gaurav Kapur, a television presenter based in India, gives insight on his process of self-development.
A very interesting interview, which makes many valid points that I have been thinking about recently. But the point he makes that stood out to me the most was his process of;
Finding Joy in the Journey Rather than just the destination.
The destination in this case is the point in which we feel we have achieved success. We are all goal-oriented in some form or another, but by achieving success how much value have you actually gained? Do results give us knowledge? The experience?
All burning questions, right?
The knowledge that we obtain from the hard grind and effort is invaluable in this day and age where self-teaching is thriving amongst the millennials.
After all, how many of us start on a new journey to achieve our ambitions and give up because we don’t achieve success in the first 6–12 months.
However, enjoying the journey will only keep us driven towards success, however long that may take to reach.
Enjoying the journey and you will keep coming back for more.
I began photography around a year ago. I am a long way off the photographer I want to be, but does that mean I should give up?
Not at all! Because I’m fully enjoying everything that I am learning in the process.
It has given me skills that I had never imagined when starting and given me the opportunities to learn new software, which I didn’t think were relevant to photography.
I make mistakes all the time. Little things, that I would have otherwise never noticed if I had instantly achieved success. The whole idea of making mistakes, and we all make them, is that we embrace them and learn from them.
Yes, the destination is important but, no amount of instant success will give us the experience we need to be a valuable asset in our respective fields long term.
How do we enjoy the journey more?
This is, of course, different in different fields, but if I take photography as an example;
I’ve come up with an idea for a shot that I’d like to take, and set about planning what I need to get the shot. What time of day would be best? What are the potential obstacles that I may come across? These are all basic processes that are repeated every time. But, I may need a model to be in the shot to make it look a certain way.
I may have never interacted with models before, but I have been given the opportunity to meet somebody new and learn about what they do. Get an insight into their lives and maybe pick up a tip or two that they have from their previous experience.
Whether I end up getting the exact shot that I wanted or not, the perfect shot, I can look back and say, ‘I enjoyed going out today to shoot. I met someone new. Learned something about their life experiences and the obstacles they have had to overcome to get where they are.’ And this for me is more valuable than any photo.
The opportunity to take the photo may come again. But, I may not meet that particular person again. I may not have the same issues that I may have had on that particular day of taking photos. I will not regret making the mistakes I made on that particular day down the line.
Those mistakes are what gave me the experience to learn from and to improve and this is all part of the journey.
Now, I’m not saying that you should completely disregard your ambitions or not celebrate your successes. But, once the joy from the success has worn off what have you got left?
The enjoyment you had on the journey!
I go back to the interview I mentioned earlier and Gaurav goes on to say,
We spend so much time looking at the results. For example, how many likes we get on an Instagram post. If we were truly enjoying what we were doing, the numbers wouldn’t matter. The appreciation of our work from others would just be a by-product of the process.
So enjoy the journey! Take pride in your craft! But most of all, take in all the experiences along the way. For when you are old and look back on life, it will be all the little journeys that you’ll remember before you remember what they gave you in the end.
Life is a journey after all. A journey that we embark on that allows us to learn, improve, and develop.
