SolveYourProblem
Article Series: Brainstorming
Brainstorming, Where Do I Begin?
How
To Achieve Success:
Goal People vs River People
The late, great self-help guru Earl Nightingale
used to say that two types of people exist in the world: Goal
People and River People. Both types of people have the potential
for experiencing total joy and fulfillment in life (whatever
that may mean to them), but pursue and experience it in very
different ways.
The goal
person is familiar to most all of us. Goal people
are those who write their objective down along with time-frames
in which to achieve them. Goal people then put their focus
on methodically achieving those stated goals.
Goal
people lay out a clear and well-defined road map for
actualizing the future they desire, thereby providing their
minds with a specific set of steps to take and elements on
which to concentrate. These instructions trigger the subconscious
mind to begin forming insights designed to facilitate the fulfillment
of those instructions.
By contrast, river
people aren’t so suited to following a
structured path to achievement. Nightingale termed this type
of person “river people” because of how they find their greatest
fulfillment in the act of pursuing their interests. River people
find joy in simply engaging in the areas they find most interesting.
River people don’t pursue goals and objectives so much as they
do their passions.
In a society and culture geared more towards the achievement
of clear-cut goals and the adherence to a relatively fixed
and familiar path, river people are often misunderstood. River
people don’t function well with a concrete plan of action and
a list of measurable results. River people achieve success
through their passion for showing up to the adventure every
day. The way, then, for a river person to best achieve success
and produce results is to find the arena that interests them
most.
Goal
people are focused on the destination, river people on
the journey. Both are valid methods of achieving success and
fulfillment, and both have lessons to learn from one another.
The gift that river people have to share with goal people is
their ability to spot breakthrough possibilities that more
linear, goal-oriented thinking may simply not identify. The
gift that goal people have to share with river people is the
power of a streamlined focus.
A fully well-rounded individual may cultivate the qualities
of both goal people and river people in his or her life, regardless
of which one they are more innately aligned with. Everyone
has the qualities of both river people and goal people inside
them, and the fast-track to success is to find the river person
and goal person inside you. Then foster the synergistic integration
of both those energies in everything you do.
If
you identify more with the description of a goal person,
then consider taking time out to “stop and smell the roses.”
Cultivate your creative, right-brained side. Open yourself
up to new ideas and experiences. If, on the other hand, you
lean more towards being a river person, then try a bit of goal-setting
for a change of pace.
Whichever applies most to you, the mere change of mode will
expose you to a whole new world of ideas and experiences, and
produce such significant changes in you that you can’t help
but find yourself farther along on the road to success and
fulfillment than you ever dreamed possible. # # # # # SolveYourProblem.com
: 2008
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