Road Trips (and Development) Aren't All About the Destination

Let's say you and I lived in Omaha, Nebraska and one day I woke up and wanted to go on a road trip. "Let's go west!" I cry and start packing my bag. "You want to be a little more specific?" you ask. "I want to jump in the Pacific!" I reply. "It's a big ocean," you muse. "Then it will be hard to miss!" I retort as I go on packing. After more witty repartee, we look at the map together. "Decision time," you mutter, "which way do you want to go?" "That way," I reply, well aware of how unhelpful I am and also aware of how little I care. "We've got hours before it's even close to decision time," I say, somewhat cryptically. "Do you even know how road trips work?!?" we exclaim in unison.

Let me make one thing I believe about road trips clear: they don’t have strict timetables. If I have to be at a specific somewhere by a specific somewhen, I’m not road tripping anymore, I’m commuting. That’s my arbitrary standard, using my own made-up word. School is commuting, learning is a roadtrip. The whole premise of school is that you’re supposed to learn certain things before the end of the year. If you don’t learn them, then you didn’t get to the certain somewhere you were supposed to get to. But that’s not how learning and development work.

I've come to accept this about road trips: they don't care about the plans we make before we leave. What if we had set out for L.A. only to decide in Denver that San Francisco was more our style? Would our trip now be a failure? Would we have to go home and start all over again? Or could we just take a right turn and head for a new destination? What if we saw the purple mountains' majesty of the Rocky Mountains and decided to stop there? Would none of it be worthwhile because we originally set our sights on the shining sea? Are we quitters? Sure we are, by some definitions. But it's also perfectly fine to say that what we experienced was valuable and beautiful in its own right. Our choice to stay in the mountains doesn't lessen the beauty of the ocean and maybe we'll even go there another time. All this is to explain that, despite our best efforts (or lack thereof), the trip will have its say and we will get more out of it if we are open to changing plans.

Here's something else I accept about road trips: the journey and the destination are separate experiences. The trip can be brutal and the destination can be beautiful but the opposite is just as likely to be true. The whole thing can all be dead medium, despite our best efforts to make it special or we can find little joys sprinkled throughout. As the old automotive saying goes, your mileage may vary.

As coaches, teachers, and mentors, we can learn a lot from road trips.

First, let's consider what we can learn about our own development. We can have well-laid plans about how we're going to advance but learning and development are almost never linear and will not follow our timetables. Sometimes we miss the lessons we have to learn, just like sometimes we miss a turn or a freeway exit. Worse yet, sometimes we think we don’t have to learn the lessons in front of us, just like sometimes we’re so sure that we’re on the right road until miles later. If we’re honest with ourselves, our road trip plans were always a bit loose because there are always unforeseen obstacles. And that's okay if we let it be. Contrary to our experiences in school, we don't have to be on a schedule to learn and grow. We can still be committed to getting better and learning more, despite not knowing exactly what that will look like or when it will happen. It is enough to be covering ground, we don’t have to be on time too. The more specific our plans for growth are, the less likely we are to follow them exactly. This is not to say that we are less likely to achieve our goals, just less likely to check all the boxes along the way. Not all of our goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. to work or to be motivating. Sometimes having open goals works better.

The comparisons between road trips and our own development hold true for the development of the learners and athletes in our care as well. The first crucial difference is that now we're passengers, not drivers. The second difference is that we're not along for the whole trip. The result of these differences is that we have even less control than we would if it was our trip. Imagine that we are hired guides for a small portion of a much larger journey. We are experts on our little stretch of road and our suggestions for navigating that section may be well-received. We know where the potholes and the speed traps are, we know where the restaurants and the gas stations are. We can suggest whatever we'd like when we're in the passenger seat, but we shouldn't be surprised or offended if and when our advice isn't taken. Much as we may care what happens after we step out of the car that's not part of our journey together. Our planning and coaching can become more fluid and free when we allow for the end result to be relative to the time we spend together instead of relative to an imagined distant goal. We will often ask ourselves if we have prepared athletes in our care for "the next level" and I think that if their minds and eyes are open and their bodies are healthy then we can say that we have prepared them sufficiently. Our practices and training plans don't have to be made with some far-off destination in mind, they can embrace a much more proximal version of progress. I can rest easy knowing that there will be other guides that will accompany the athletes in the future, I don't have to do all the work myself. Sometimes short- and medium-term goals work better.

When we coach, we're riding in a car that isn't ours and we would do well to remind ourselves of that from time to time. All we can do is strive to give the drivers our most accurate view of the road they're on now and let them decide if they want to keep going and how. It's okay if the athletes in our care don't make it to where we thought they should, and that may not be because of how we planned and coached. They don't have to make progress according to our timetable. Remember that this is development, not school. Our challenge is not to get them somewhere by somewhen or even to make sure they keep moving, it is to help them create their road trip memories. Maybe they keep their intended destination throughout their time with us and maybe they don't. When they change their minds, we don't have to convince them that they're making a mistake. Sometimes following their goals is better than imposing our goals on them.

It helps to remember that some of the beauty of road trips is in their inefficiency. If the athlete decides to take a detour, we can point them down new roads. If they choose to stop, we can help them find a place to stay. Maybe they'll change their minds again further on down the road. Maybe they'll even choose to readopt their original destination. It's not for us to say that they're roadtripping wrong or that they have wasted time and energy. The original destination will still be there, waiting for them if that's where they ultimately choose to go. They'll have had a few more experiences and have made a few more stories to tell. That's how road trips work.