Following Your Internal GPS

Have no regrets, for each decision you have made and each step you have taken has led you to this moment today. And in this moment you owe it to yourself to be thankful for that long and windy path that lies in your yesterday (because it is over and you made it!!) and to be excited about the unknown curves that will certainly come your way as you approach your tomorrow.

Of course, we each have an idea of who it is that we want to be, and what it is that we want to accomplish, and where it is that we want to go. But many things can happen on the road to where we believe we are headed.

Your internal GPS might say, “You have reached your intended destination.” And sometimes when we get there, we party like it’s 1999! Yes! I finished my degree. Yes! I got that new job. Yes! I found that perfect someone.

But there may be times when we reach where we thought we really wanted to be, and suddenly realize “Wow, this is neither what I had expected nor what I really want.” No need to worry or feel badly – just allow the road you have traveled to help guide you to your next destination. Reset your GPS and get moving!

Or your internal GPS might say “recalculating.” Oh, we have all gotten lost on our way. Someone told us to take the wrong turn. Something distracted us and we kept driving straight when we were supposed to have exited. It doesn’t mean you cannot get to where you want to go; let your internal guide help you recalculate.

Or perhaps, along the road, you saw a far better place than where you were initially going, like wanting to be a social worker instead of a lawyer or to start your own business instead of working as a nurse. Go ahead – reset your GPS to find this new destination. Do not feel bad, because guess what? You wouldn’t have even known about this new place that you now want to be, if you hadn’t started on the road to where you didn’t.

Or maybe you hit a pothole and blew a tire. Bet you wouldn’t do that again if given another chance, now would you? Yes, we all do things on our journey, like say things we don’t really mean or spending more than we can afford, that if given a do-over we would do so much differently.

SO WHAT! We all make mistakes. We need to accept these mistakes as opportunities to change that old tire. Each time we fix a flat, like apologizing or committing to a budget, lets us walk away a shinier version of who we were before we got that flat.

The world we live in is so beautiful with more destinations that we can even imagine. So there is no way when we start out on our journey that we will truly know where we end up.

All we do know is that there will be hills we have to climb and times we get to coast, days where we can roll down the windows and let the wind blow through our hair and days when it is raining so hard that our windshield wipers cannot keep up. But all the really, really good times and even the really, really bad give us the chance to truly experience life and to choose, with even more clarity, where our tomorrow will lead us.

And if you get lost again or miss another turn, just reset or recalculate and get moving!