Target vs. Goal
I heard this interesting story in a “Self-love” workshop by Jay Shetty and I had to share it, especially through the lens of a college student.
Once there was an archery zen master. A student approached the master and said, “I want to learn archery.” The master replied, “Of course! I can teach you.” He had a paper on which he drew a bullseye, a target, and he stuck it with a pin into a tree trunk. He had a makeshift bow made from twigs and some string. He handed it to the student. The student started firing and kept missing. The student got frustrated and tried again and kept firing, but kept missing the target.
The master asked the student, “What is your goal?” The student said, “My goal is to hit that target.” The master reiterated for the student to listen to their words and think again, “You’re telling me that your goal is to fire a twig so it can hit that paper in the middle?” The student felt a bit embarrassed and timidly uttered, “I guess not?” The master then explained, “Hitting the twig in the middle of the paper is the target, that’s only the target and it’s for your arrow. Your goal is to be so still and calm that you can hit your target. The goal of your work is your energy. What you achieve? Who you become in the process of hitting your target? That’s your goal. Not hitting your target on it’s own.”
Too many of us are focused on hitting our targets forgetting the goal. Often times as college students, we tend to run this race alongside other students. It’s as if our college lives has been dictated by others, given a check list of events or milestones to be ticked off. Our target may be to gain more knowledge in the domain of our interest, learning skills, making projects, participating in hackathons and competitions, joining communities, developing relationships, achieving accolades, bagging internships, getting a job, building a start-up, preparing for an exam or further studies but our goal is to learn how to learn, how to enjoy the process, how to be a student and be curious. Our goal is to understand and explore ourselves, ask questions and discover a million little things about ourselves that we never paid attention to. Our goal is to become a better version of ourselves and to learn to understand and navigate our emotions while hitting and missing our targets.
Let us take a step back, drop everything we have been running after (not forever just a few minutes, don’t worry I am not asking anyone to abandon their targets in life), take a break and reflect — Are we mistaking our targets for our goal? What are the values that we hold dear and firmly believe in? Have we acknowledged what aligns with our values and what doesn’t? Have we paid attention to our energy and where we are focusing it? If not? Then what is stopping us?
