All journeys start with exploration, expanding your awareness beyond your current realm of understanding.

It is here that you find new ideas, new goals, new aspirations.

Anything novel and new entering your awareness through your many senses is a form of exploration.

Now with a plethora of exciting new things before you, you feel overwhelmed by the possibility.

It’s time to decide on a few important objectives. Of the goals you have collected through your exploration, you will need to audit them for alignment to who you are.

What do you love? What does the world need? How could these goals join together into something cohesive and unified? What would fulfill me long term?

Now with a destination in mind, you are eager to get started and head off on your journey. But it is still too soon…

On any journey you need 2 points at all times. Your destination and your current position.

It is time to observe and be present to your current starting point. To honestly understand where you currently are in relation to the goal you have decided on.

Google maps turns on, you have a destination and a starting point. You press “start journey”, an intricate and yet precise list of instructions appears on the screen telling you how to go from where you are to where you want to be.

Unfortunately you don’t have a magic app that can do this journey planning for you when it comes to your goals. You will have to figure out your own plan.

How can I get from where I am to where I want to be? Who has achieved this goal before me? Who can I learn from? How can I break my big goal down into smaller projects and those projects down into doable tasks?

A dream is a goal without a plan. With a plan, even the seemingly impossible is brought into the realm of possibility through consistent focused action.

Action is about making real the desired goal, the plan is a blueprint on how to do this. In reality, the plan begins to become obsolete as soon as it is created, and will need to be amended as the journey progresses.

A journey of 1000 miles begins, continues and is completed one step at a time. Action is the same thing, it will happen 1 step / task at a time until completed. Break any step that is not easily achievable down into smaller steps.

We are constantly measuring the difference between our goal and reality. The goal of our action is to make this gap smaller.

If the gap is not getting smaller from our action, we are doing the wrong things. We are not following our plan or our plan was made without understanding the true journey required.

When our present reality matches our desired destination, we have achieved our goal.

We have brought into reality a thought.

It started as a whisper in the back of your mind, crystallised into a goal, made possible through planning, and made manifest through determined action.

You have arrived, for better or worse at the destination you desired to reach.

Appreciation, gratitude, reward, if you do not overtly receive something for the achievement of the goal, you must still take the time to celebrate.

Celebration is the act of showing love for one’s own integrity, for making real one’s own intentions, for acknowledging the achievement of one’s goals.

The celebration is in proportion to the size of the goal achieved. For a task done in minutes, mentally acknowledging the achievement is enough. For achievement of your big company goal, maybe a week of celebration is in order.

With the journey ended and celebration coming to a close, the next journey is opened by reflecting on the previous.

Reflection is a form of exploration into the past, it opens the door on doing things differently next time.

Using this completed journey as inspiration, you choose your next great goal. And so the Heroes Journey of Productivity becomes a Growth Spiral, ever cycling upwards to greater heights.