I know you’ve heard it before.

Success Is Not a Destination.

Success Is A Journey.

Yadda Yadda Yadda.

Can I just get to the destination, and skip all the “journey” drama?

I ran head-first into this “truthiness”, in the fall of 2009.

One of my boys dared the guys to sign up for the Chicago Urbanathlon.

12 miles of obstacles:

• Military pull-ups,
• Monkey bars,
• Tire runs,
• A mile of stadium stairs,
• Wall climbs,
• Scaling over taxis… and all in frigid weather.

So naturally, I said “yes”.  I had 10 weeks to train.

4 weeks later, I thought: “I should probably start training…”

Yes. With 6 weeks to go, I ran my first mile in goodness knows how long.

And felt halfway through that my lungs would explode.

(Never mind that I ran regularly in high school.  That was then. This is now – 16 years later! LOL!)

My mind was focused on the D-day.

With time quickly winding down, I RAPIDLY built my runs up to 3 miles… then 4… then 6.

I think my longest run was 8 miles, before D-day.  It was quick.  It was rushed.

You see what I was doing wrong?

I was focusing on the DESTINATION.  Completing the Urbanathlon. Just getting it DONE.

I gave little thought to the journey – as in, this was a chance to adopt a new healthy habit.

A chance to become a regular runner again.

Nah.  Before I even got to Chicago, I was focused on the finish line.

• 3 times during the race, freezing rain pelted us runners.
• Both my calf muscles seized up.
• I got blisters.
• Young ladies and old men breezed past me with a very disturbing ease.
• But I finished the race . And it’s one of my proudest accomplishments.

For 12 hours after the race, my entire back was seized up in a horrible contraction.

But I finished the race.

That was October 2009.

I haven’t run since then.

My mistake?

I defined success as completing the race.

Instead of defining success as becoming the type of person that runs such races easily.

I was “one-and-done”, find the quickest path to success, take it, get there, then become a couch potato.

What a missed opportunity.

Next time someone tells you that success is a journey, not a destination, give it a second thought.

I’ve learned that success isn’t your accomplishment of a goal, however grandiose.

It’s your becoming the type of person that accomplishes such goals regularly.  The change isn’t out there, it’s in here.

That puts short cuts in a different light, doesn’t it?

If your transformation during the journey itself is success, aren’t you short-changing your success by taking a short cut?

The next time you have a chance to take a short cut, if it’s for something you care about, don’t.

You wouldn’t bake a cake halfway, just because you’re hungry.

Don’t leave your personal transformation half-baked.

You’ll just get the runs.

Success is definitely a journey.

And you never fail, until you stop traveling.

(Speaking of the runs: Remind me to tell you about the first cake I baked, as a 14-year old, for my fellas.)

Here’s a funny video on the perils of taking short cuts:

What’s been your experience with success as a journey vs success as a destination?