Goal-oriented is the pursuit of completing specific, achievable goals. Goals are motivating, external factors that help drive us to the desired outcome.
Growth consciousness is an internal drive with no ultimate destination. It’s a desire to learn and improve personally as we pursue what we are passionate about. It’s a process or journey with no finish line.
We need both to be successful and live life with purpose.
Once we reach a goal, we either stop or make another goal to keep us moving.
However, if we have a growth-conscious mind-set, we focus on the process or the journey of getting better and learning, which never ends, and produces maturity and a healthier way of living.
A good friend of mine that I have known for over thirty years is past the typical age of retirement. One would never know it! However, he continues to pursue his passion, always looking for investment opportunities while always open to learn and grow along the way. He is a long-time real estate investor and one of my first and largest limited partners in Fidelis.
By most people’s standard of achievement as a successful real estate investor, he far exceeded the goal. We talk weekly about the market and what investment opportunities we see out there. We bounce ideas off one another, looking for feedback while growing individually and in our businesses.
He inspires me because he doesn’t see age as a limiting factor but an opportunity to learn, grow, mature, knowing life is not a destination but a journey.
People who are strictly goal-oriented often plateau and stagnate in life with a loss of purpose. A growth-oriented person focuses on the journey of life. It’s a process of multiplying what God has given us to be successful while helping others do the same.
It is not one or the other; we all need to have goals to keep moving, but to have an overriding consciousness for growth, open to learn, and help others along the way, making life a great deal more rewarding.