I sit down at the conference room table. Looking around, I see faces every bit as eager as my own. This is it. Finally, I’ve made it. I’ve arrived. This moment is what every ounce of effort that’s preceded it has been leading to.

Hanging onto every word the senior partner speaks, I feel my heart pounding. He paints a picture of a land flowing with milk and honey, where the world is at our feet.

Like Pavlov’s dog, I realise I am salivating at the prospect.

His tone suddenly sharpens. It snaps me out of my reverie and back into our ‘graduate induction morning’. As instructed, I glance down at the booklet and say aloud, in unison with my fellow inductees, ‘Consistently Exceeding Expectations’.

As I spoke those words—not as encouragement but as an instruction—everything changed. Those three seemingly innocuous words launched me onto a trajectory that would lead to devastation, restoration, and transformation.

The period of devastation unfolded slowly, masquerading as exhilaration for a time. Success followed success. Promotion followed promotion. Pay rise followed pay rise. Goal after goal was hit out of the park, and yet none of it—the money, the praise, the achievements—could satisfy the longing in my soul. The longing for something that would make me feel whole.

And when Devastation came, it did so like a thief in the night. Unannounced and unwelcome, it removed all that I clung to for security in a single moment.

The thing is, though, while it was unwelcome, it was not uninvited.

Devastation had been warning me of its presence for some time, but I chose to ignore it. Each goal I set that meant nothing to me, each goal I pursued without recourse to my values, passions or strengths, each goal I smashed with no lasting sense of accomplishment: each one reinforced that invitation to Devastation.

As Devastation wreaked its havoc, destroying my career, my sense of self, and my hope, it cleared a path for something new. In the midst of all that annihilation, a new invitation was being penned—an invitation to Restoration.

As Devastation departed, Restoration entered and led me on a voyage across the oceans of what my life had become. I saw that I could never consistently exceed expectations, for with each expectation exceeded, the bar was simply raised. I saw the futility of each goal I had set to tackle that unwinnable struggle.

Restoration revealed to me the person I truly was—the parts of life that truly mattered to me, the experiences that made my heart sing, and the strengths I had pushed into the shadows. I saw the disconnect between all that truly mattered to me and all that I had proclaimed as important.

With a gentle arm on my shoulder, Restoration guided my view to the horizon and beckoned forward its companion, Transformation.

As Restoration bade me farewell, Transformation took my arm and led me to the mountaintop. Surveying a vista where my life was everything it was meant to be, Transformation extended an invitation: an invitation into the adventure of becoming the person I was always meant to be—my best self.

With Transformation as my travelling companion, I have been on that adventure ever since. It is an adventure where the struggle does not need to be won, merely embraced. Where the pursuit is not endless, but eternal. Where my sense of self is ever-expanding and the goals I set align with who I am.

Don’t waste time in an unwinnable struggle, following paths that lead to places you are not meant to go. Shut the door on Devastation, eliminate the need for Restoration and, instead, welcome Transformation as your travelling companion.