A to B vs Zig & Zag [6 min read]

Humans have a way of zigging and zagging through life. Very rarely does anything follow a straight line from start to finish when embarking on a journey...

The space shuttle is something that appears to follow a straight line but if you were to track the line it traces to get to the moon, an observer would see that it is anything but straight!

When you are learning to bowl, the ball will bounce off the bumpers as it approaches the pins. As you become a better bowler, a curved path towards the pins provides the best chance to knock down all of the pins consistently.

How does zigging and zagging lead to growth?

How do you define if you were successful?

Starting out on a project, task, life-goal, or anything that is worthwhile will inevitably lead to some detours along the way. The path that you initially take might be the correct path but there may be some trail blazing that needs to occur to get to the finish line...which may include some crashes and burns too.

Anytime I've have started something that is difficult, even though I had a well thought out plan, I rarely was successful achieving 100% of what I set out to do with 0% errors. The flag at the finish line that was planted, sometimes moves around during the journey and may discourage the uninformed and misguided onlooker but the dedicated and successful person realizes that the best laid plans may take some detours along the way.

Planting a firm flag may lead you to think that you failed when you don't achieve the exact result you were looking for when in fact you probably achieved a lot during your journey. When the flag moves, that doesn't necessarily mean defeat or failure, it may mean that the path that you are on leads to a different destination that you initially thought! Trying to achieve an exact result can limit your creative abilities because you might miss the other lessons that the detours along the way are trying to show you.

Have you ever had a boss, teacher, mentor, parent, brother, sister, or someone close to you that exemplifies all the WRONG ways to do things? Observing someone that is not doing what they should and that is not on a positive path is very helpful. I've been fortunate enough to have some poor leadership and poor bosses during my civilian and military career. The mind works in mysterious ways but what I can say is that I remember far more miss-steps and poor decisions that were made by bad bosses than all of the good decisions that were made. There are several reasons for this but what I can surmise is that a good boss' leadership won't always be readily apparent because their work is done in the background and it makes your life better but you won't always see the first-order effects of what they are doing for you.

On the flip-side, a bad boss will show you the wrong ways to do things because you will experience them first hand; especially if you are on the direct receiving end of the message or result!

Growth shows itself to you as you are on the trail working towards your goals in the form of what you shouldn't do most of the time. Trial and error is a way of learning. At the start, you may seem to have more errors but take heart because your mind has a way of storing all the things that didn't go right and it is important to catalog all the things that went well so that discouragement and fear of losing doesn't set in and derail your ability to complete what you started out to do.

When do you know that success is achieved? Most people don't take the time for introspection and thought prior to starting a journey. I know that I have fallen into this trap many times and then I find myself in the middle of my mind jungle wondering where I am and how I got there in the first place.

• If you don't define the finish line, how do you know where your trail should lead?
• If you start a path but don't have a map, compass, and plan to get where you are going, how do you define if you were successful on what you started out to do?

The fastest way to get from A to B is a straight line but when you are doing something new, challenging, or that puts you out of your comfort zone, there's going to be some zigging and zagging that happens along the way; departures from the centerline of the straight line. Know that during this process, especially at the outset, the departures from the centerline of your straight line are usually larger when you are new at something. The zigs and zags that happen will tend to dampen out and will lead to a straighter line as you near the finish line. When you get large divergent lines away from the centerline of your initial path, take note and strengthen your resolve to finish what you started out to do. The more difficult the task, the more that it means to you, the more that it helps others, the more that it is something that puts you way out of your comfort zone, the better. These types of worth-while tasks are something that you can't quit.

Know that when you start out, the process that you use and recycle every time you revisit the same task is important so try not to cut any corners while you are going because you will inevitably have to re-do what you did in the past if it wasn't done correctly the 1st time. If you follow the course, do what is difficult but correct, the line that you follow will grow closer and closer to the straight line as you travel from A to B. Once you have your process set and have done something the 1st time correctly, you will find that when you copy what you already did, recycling the plan is refreshing because you aren't relearning everything brand new for the 1st time.

You'll get faster.

You'll experience accelerating acceleration --Buckminster Fuller

More will be completed with fewer resources and in a quicker time - with ease.

The Trap - Don't let the big zigs and zags that happen initially discourage you.

The Lesson - Think of your end goal and continue the course; the more difficult tasks in life are going to challenge your resolve every step of the way, especially at the beginning phases.

Your ziggin and zaggin is all part of being human - don't fight it, learn from it!

Dominic "Slice" Teich