The Journey of a 1000 miles!

Like every other average person, I took out a piece of paper on the New Year’s Eve and wrote down my New Year resolutions. Like every other average male in his 20s, my resolutions were—

• Six-pack abs.
• A multi-million dollar empire.
• The intellect of Elon Musk.

Each of my New Year resolutions was a journey of a 1000 miles, but the naive me thought that I’d accomplish ALL of them in the span of one year! I was never more wrong.

December 31, 2016 was just like every other New Year’s Eve — a piece of paper, 3 New Year resolutions and infinite hope. Little did I know the magic that 2017 had in store for me.

I spent the first morning of 2017 in the gym (the New Year Excitement, I know!). As I was parking my yellow colored scooter, a guy much older than me (lets call him ‘B’) drove his shiny Harley Davidson, into the parking spot next to mine. Me and B took the lift to gym and began with our workout routines.

The difference between me and B was unfathomable. I huffed and puffed to lift a small dumbbell of 7.5 lb and B warmed up with 30 lb dumbbells. I jogged at 6 km/h for a total of 10 mins and B sprinted at 12 km/h for a total of 20 mins. I was a fat young man with no hint of muscles, B was a muscular young man with no hint of fat! I needed to know the secret, I needed to know how B was so much fitter than me, I need to know if B was taking steroids!

With the little courage that I had, I walked up to B and asked him —

Are you a professional bodybuilder?

With a firm, humble voice B smiled and said that he was a Director at a leading software company. At that moment it hit me! B had a phenomenal physique, a lot of money (Harley Davidson is by no means cheap) and a great intellect (Director at a leading software company!). He was closer to my New Year resolutions than I had ever imagined myself to me. I instantly slipped into self-doubt and self-pity. My bubbly face curled up to one with no expression. Right at that instant B began shedding light on the 8 years of struggle he had been through, between balancing gym, work, travel and family. A struggle like that truly deserved all rewards.

Looking back at this incident, I understand two important things about long term goals —

• A long term goal is definitely a journey of a 1000 miles! We can’t sprint towards it or hope to achieve it in days or months. It is a goal that we need to constantly pursue, for a few years at the very least.

As I write this post, I assure you that I don’t have six pack abs. I’m nowhere close to a multi-million dollar empire and my intellect is probably 0.34% that of Elon Musk’s. But I know for a fact that I’m closer to these goals than I’ve ever been before!

• Now that we know that each of our long term goal is a journey of a 1000 miles, we need to acknowledge the fact some people have already walked a few miles in the direction of those goals. If we compare our start to someone’s middle, we are bound to feel insignificant.

I compared myself to a man who had been hustling for over 8 years. That very man’s words made me realize that I too need to struggle for an extended period of time to move closer to my goal.

For those of you who are just starting your journey of a 1000 miles, please don’t underestimate the time you’d take to reach you destination or compare your position to someone else’s.

For those of you who have already walked a few miles, please take a step towards guiding the people who are walking behind you.

For those of you who have completed the journey, please start a new one!

Thanks for reading! If you like this post, please show some love. A journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step, my journey of reaching a thousand followers starts with YOU! For more details, chat me up on LinkedIn.