Course corrections are normal

Have you ever tried, when you are on one of those roads that just seems to be perfectly straight, playing a game where you see how straight you can get the car driving down the road without having to touch the steering wheel? (I am not recommending you do this, you can likely imagine how it would work.) First you just let go of the steering wheel, within a second or two you notice you were aimed too much to the right. So you line things up again, let go, this time within a second or two you notice you were aimed too much to the left. After a bunch of practice you may be able to keep it going for 10 seconds or maybe even more without noticing the car starting to get off course, but no matter what you do you can’t seem to aim the car perfectly down, what seems like, a perfectly straight road.

Why? Well there are a lot of factors at play in this scenario. First it is really hard to get a car 100% perfectly straight, second the steering mechanism isn’t built to have the kind of precision needed to get the car wheels perfectly straight, third the road may be straight but the road surface is likely to have imperfections that push the car off course, fourth wind, I could go on. The point is that it is basically impossible to get a car to stay going straight down the road, especially since many factors affecting the car aren’t constant.

So why are the vast majority of cars able to stay on the road safely? The reason is that there is someone that is constantly noticing those slight deviances and making the necessary adjustments to keep the car on the road.

Our lives are very similar.

Throughout our lives we have desires and goals that we are working towards. As we go through our daily lives we will occasionally lose focus, our circumstances will change, our knowledge and understanding will improve. Each of these things can cause us to slightly diverge from the path we want to be on, or can help us realize that our original direction wasn’t quite correct. As we regularly take time to review the direction we want to be headed in we can make those slight adjustments, just like we would do if we were driving a car.

The fact that we have to make an adjustment should not be seen as a signal that we are a failure or that we have made a mistake. Instead the fact that we are willing to make an adjustment, that we are willing to admit that we are slightly off course, and take the required action should be celebrated, it is a sign that we are growing and improving. This is a good thing!

I would encourage you to regularly review the direction you are traveling. Try to find a couple of things you can improve or need to change, and then implement those changes. As you find ways to do this you will become more comfortable with making adjustments in the future. You will be more willing to admit you have drifted slightly off course. And as a result, instead of ending up in the ditch on the side of the road, you will be able to arrive safely at your desired destination.

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