Trust the Direction You're Heading

Speed. I am speed.

Both of my sons went through a long phase of loving Lightning McQueen. From clothes, to toys, to books, to Tonies, to coloring pages, their little hearts latched onto anything from the movie Cars. 

Lightning McQueen is a great example of how much can go wrong when speed is the only thing seen as valuable. He's a race car, so obviously speed is a massive determining factor in his career, but when he only cared about being the fastest, he almost lost everything. 

When I started my modeling career, I signed up for a workshop that offered a class taught by a model who was highly successful in the Utah market. I remember she said it took seven years for her to get to the point where she was able to get paid as a model, and right then I decided I was going to do it in less. 

I had no strategy; all I knew was that I wanted to beat the person I deemed to be the best of the best. I started a mental race between myself and the version of her that used to be in my shoes. 

I'm now six and a half years into my modeling career, and although I met that goal, it's not something I celebrated. I honestly didn't even notice when I accomplished it. At the time I set that goal, I wanted to succeed the fastest.

I don't feel that way anymore.

When I was overly concerned with my speed, I suffered a lot of anxiety about my direction. I didn't know if anything I was doing was actually the right thing to do or would get me to my desired destination. 

I remember feeling so stressed trying to meet astronomical goals each month. The mental weight of missing the targets I set for myself was slowing me down, and I didn't notice it. Putting time pressure on my success wasn't helping me get anywhere. Trying to rush accomplishments only resulted in me feeling lost and empty.

It wasn't until about a year or two ago that I stopped obsessing over the speed at which my dreams were coming true. The shift I made away from only valuing my speed wasn't a conscious one. It was a side effect of the personal growth journey I've been on for the past couple of years, which you can read about in my January blogs. Since then, I've realized that speed is nowhere near as important as direction. 

My journey to becoming an international model has been anything but speedy.  I've met so many models working here in Milan who haven't even hit one year in the industry yet. If I still let speed determine my level of success, I'd probably consider myself the least accomplished model here. But I don't care about being the fastest anymore. I know I'm heading in the right direction, and I know my speed doesn't influence that. If anything, I've benefited more from slowing down than trying to speed up.

One important takeaway from my journey of chasing my dreams is that recalibration is an essential part of the process. Taking the time to reflect on what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong, what adjustments you want to make to your behavior, and getting more specific with the outcome you desire are powerful opportunities to check in with where you're heading--and they all require one thing: time.

If you're concentrating on speed, you will never want to take the time to recalibrate. This is one way to quickly end up on the wrong path. If you rush to the destination, you might miss a sign or two. Clarity comes from slowing down, not speeding up.

I'm not going to lie, I still struggle with impatience from time to time. It's not always easy to manage ambition, but when I give myself time to recalibrate, I gain the clarity I need to make the right choice the first time. I spend less time making mistakes or backtracking. I'm able to relax and trust the path that I'm on.

Life is a highway. One thing about highways is that they never really end. One road always leads to another, and I don't want to be going so fast that I miss the turn I'm supposed to take.

I'll never miss my destiny; I'll never be too slow to fulfill my purpose in life. I know the path I'm on is the right one, and I'd rather trust my direction rather than focus on my speed. 

As long as I'm aligned, I'm on time.