Lean Quote: Adjust Your Sails to Reach The Destination

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." — Jimmy Dean

Life is filled with all kinds of surprises, both good and bad, but we must not allow misfortune to be the judge of our achievements and dictate our level of success. If we know exactly what we want, and commit just a few minutes per week to make sure we’re on track, then sooner or later, we will reach our goals.

Life has an interesting way of teaching us lessons that prepare us for the journey ahead. We all have goals, dreams and ambitions that we would like to one day successfully bring to physical reality. Yet from our very limited perspective we fail to realize or understand how unworthy and undeserving we actually are of these experiences.

Every goal, every dream, every deep intense purpose that we conjure up within the recesses of our minds is not so much a destination but rather a journey of experiences filled with lessons, hardships, and challenges that must be confronted and overcome in order to experience the pleasures of the destinations that we envision within our minds.

No man or woman ever accomplished their goals, dreams or visions without first experiencing the hardships of the journey that led them to their final destination. When the winds came they understood that they had a choice. They could either resist and try to fight over the top of the winds of change, or they could harness the power of these winds and propel themselves forward towards their destination in potentially unforeseen ways. They realized that life is in a constant process of motion and change that adapts to our shifting thoughts, actions, emotions and goals. What we consciously think we want, may indeed not be what we unconsciously desire. Yet, the shifting wind knows and realizes these internal desires and progressively adjusts our course towards our true intentions.

As our course changes, the winds become our teachers, they help us to understand what it will take to deserve to experience our dreams in physical reality. Without these experiences it would be impossible to accomplish what we seek. Ask the most successful people in the world if they would have become who they are today if not for those challenges, problems, or ill-fated circumstances that constantly stood in their way. They learned throughout this process that life will always throw you curve balls, and that unless we adjust, adapt and alter our course to match the changes that we are experiencing, we will suffer the consequences of ill-fated decisions that may leave us guilt ridden for the remainder of our lives.

We simply can’t change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust our sails to reach our ultimate destination.