You CAN Get There From Here

I can’t remember what program I saw it in, but there was a scene where a tourist was lost somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. He eventually came across an old bearded sheep farmer and stopped and asked how to get to his desired destination. He must have been way off course as the response he got was, “Aye laddie, ye can’t get ther’ from he’r!” So, on the traveller went none the wiser.

 

That phrase has stuck in my mind ever since, as if you can’t get to your destination from where you are currently positioned, then how will you ever get there?

 

It may be a long haul or a difficult journey requiring different modes of travel and perhaps a heap of resources, but nowadays you can pretty much get anywhere from anywhere! Set your destination and get going.

 

So how do you know if you are on the right path?

 

Apparently, stopping and asking for directions, as with our tourist above, doesn’t always give us the confirmation or redirection we may desire, so we need a more definitive measure of our progress. The modern day traveller would likely have a GPS device, guiding them turn by turn. An up-to-date road map is an old but reliable method. Travelling with someone knowledgeable of the area is always a good method.

 

But even with all the above, it is still possible to get yourself off-course and lost. Life throws you detours and diversions that aren’t part of the planned journey or you may even decide to change your destination as you are travelling. To correct your course, you have to know where you are. Use everything you have available to do this. Assess your surroundings, compare it to your map. Review the turns you have made to see where you possibly went off course. Ask someone, preferably someone you can trust, which direction you are heading. Once you know where you are, you can compare that to your desired destination and plan the route to get back on course.

 

It is always a good idea to frequently check your position against your planned route so that you know immediately when you are heading off-course. It is far easier to make corrections for minor deviations rather than travelling blindly thinking you are heading in the right direction only to discover you have missed a turn some miles back down the road. If you have, remember, you can still get to where you want to go from here! It may require some back-tracking and take you a bit longer but you can still get there.

 

Checking your route enables you to prepare for what lies ahead. You may be approaching a section of rough dirt road, so you know before hand to slow down and are not taken by surprise. You take the necessary steps before you get into the next phase of the trip so things can run as smoothly as possible. Imagine heading out on a long stretch of road not realising there are no fuel stations. If you had checked the route, you would have known to fill up your tank at the last station before that turn-off. From a personal experience it is not fun travelling along an unknown desolate route with your fuel light flashing and not knowing where the next possible refuelling point is going to be. Be prepared.

 

Monitoring your route is also quite motivating as you can see the distance from where you were steadily increasing and the gap to where you desire to be, decreasing.

On long journeys, this can be quite hard at the outset as the gap can seem insurmountable and the incremental steps in distance traversed seem miniscule. For these journeys, set milestones along the way and focus on achieving those but never losing site of the destination. Celebrate and enjoy the successes of achieving the intermediate milestones. Reward yourself for making it there. Have a rest, refresh, refuel, review your route and resume the journey.

All of the above sound so obvious for road trips but we don’t always follow the same advice for our life trips which are of so much more importance.

Do you know where you are?

Do you know where you are going?

Do you have a course you are following?

Have you got the resources and means (or at least a plan on how to get them) to get you there?

Have you got intermediate milestones for the longer journeys?

Have you started yet…?