Goal Setting Explained with Road Tripping

Posted On 17 December 2024

Most of us have probably been on a road trip at some point in our lives. We have also heard about goals and goal setting. There are different ways to take a road trip. The most common is travelling with a destination in mind – a goal.

Everything that I write about in this post applies to goals and goal setting. Feel free to substitute “goal” for “trip”. The thought process involved in this post also apply to our finances.

Occasionally, there is the road trip with no set destination. This second category can provide great experiences. I love road trips, so let’s not waste any time and get this adventure started!

The Goal

Every trip has a starting point. I’m old enough that I remember driving before GPS. We had the big Rand McNally Road Atlas. Now, Google Maps makes navigating easy. Even with an experienced traveller with us, we still need to critical pieces of information in order to plan out our road trip.

Where is our starting point? We must know where we currently are. For this trip we are starting at our home.

Who are we travelling with? This trip will be just me and my wife. For your imaginary trip with me you can take whoever you want.

Where are we going? Let’s say we are travelling to the Vancouver, BC area (referred to as the coast) for the weekend.

The Preparation

Since this is a planned weekend out of town, we also know how long we expect this trip to be. Before we start, we would make some plans like figuring out where we are going to stay, any activities we are going to do, which vehicle we are going to take, and maybe some meal ideas.

We have been to the coast many, many times. A goal does not have to be something new to you. It can be something you’ve done many times before. Preparation still makes for a smoother journey.

If we were travelling to a place we hadn’t been before, I would want to look at the map and see how to get to our destination. We can plan for places to stop for gas, food, or just to stretch.

I can jump in the car and drive with only water to drink. My wife likes to pack snacks. Different people can have different needs while on the same road trip. When we make allowances for these differences, we can both enjoy the trip better.

Budgeting For a Trip

If we take a trip without giving much thought to the costs, I guarantee you it will cost more than you think it will! We like to pay for as much of a vacation as we can before we even start the trip. If there are airline tickets, amusement park tickets, or hotels, these can be paid for ahead of time.

Meals can be planned for ahead of time including what restaurants we would like to eat at. To budget for gas in the car, I’ll take distance of the trip and multiply it by 1.25 to account for any detours, hills, and extra driving. The, I’ll take the typical gas mileage of our vehicle and figure out how much gas we will need. The final step is to use the highest gas price to calculate our total cost for gas. We would rather estimate and plan for spending more, then we can be pleasantly surprised when we spend less.

We have learned over the years that not everything goes according to plan. By allowing extra drive time, extra money to cover unexpected expenses, and even knowing if there are alternate routes we can take, our trips go smoother.

Markers along the way (mini goals)

There is excitement in planning a trip, although the real excitement comes when we start our trip! We are all packed up, our trip is planned, and now we are cruising down the road. Our car is usually filled with either good conversation or good music (often it has both). We always try to make our trip as enjoyable as possible.

As we travel down the highway we pass towns. These are all signs of progress on our road trip. When we come to a junction, and we don’t have to debate what to do because we already have decided which way we need to go in order to get to our destination.

These mini goals along the way are important markers for us. They tell us that we are making progress, and that we are going in the right direction. Some of these smaller goals are important achievements. For us heading to the coast we have a long canyon to drive through. While the canyon is beautiful to drive, there are no alternate routes should there be an accident and the highway is closed. Once we get to Hope, there are side roads that can be used if there is an accident on the highway.

Destination (Major goal)

Arriving at our destination is a wonderful feeling! We usually call our kids to let them know that we made it to our destination. It used to be our parents! When we achieve a goal, we can let people know that we made it. Not to gloat about how amazing we are, to let them know that we accomplished what we set out to do.

Like with goals, when we arrive at our destination, that only means that we are now in the position to start on our next goal. It is important, however, to take some time to rest up before we move on again.

Here’s a side note about using tools to help us get to our goal. I don’t need directions to drive from our house to Langley, BC. Since I am not as familiar with the area down at the coast, I will often us Google Maps to help me get around. We can have tools that we use for part of our journey, and not use those tools for other parts of the journey.

We can have more than one trip planned, and we can even have mini trips planned within our big trip. Sometimes we are not able to do everything that we wanted to do on a trip. That’s ok. We can plan for doing that particular thing on another trip.

Unplanned trips

I mentioned in the beginning of this post that there can be road trips we take where we don’t have a destination. I have taken many road trips in the past just to see what was down the road or in another part of a state. We could even let a good old quarter guide us with “heads” or “tails”. Whenever we get to an intersection or a junction, we simply flip the quarter to decide which way to go.

We can take a similar approach in life. For example, we can go to the grocery store in hopes of meeting someone new. We don’t know who it will be. Maybe we will only share a few words with a stranger, or they could become a new friend. We could even run into an old friend and rekindle that friendship.

Debriefing

After a road trip or achieving a goal is the best time to have a debriefing. This is when we look back over the experience and we reflect on what went well and what we would do differently should we do this again in the future. We can then apply the lessons learned to something different in the future.

By taking an intentional approach to life, we get smarter. There are things that sound amazing, yet when we do them, we find that we actually don’t like them. At the same time there will be things we are not that excited about that become our new favorite.

Life becomes a daring, bold adventure when we learn to plan for the worst, hope for the best, learn from what happened along the way. Goal setting is one of the ingredients in becoming unstoppable!