A couple of Month ago I had the chance to join an art of hosting training in St. Gerold in Vorarlberg. Where I work we use a lot of tools and ideas from the art of hosting framework for our workshops, daily business and the way we work together. The whole week had quite an impact on me but there was one special sentence that keeps popping up in my mind: ” Don’t do it for goals, do it for practice!”

I use to do a lot of sports. I use to enjoy it. I stopped doing it for competition when I had a fracture in my leg and I realized my best days in the game of basketball are far behind and I won’t get better. So i stopped. I put more of my time in doing other stuff. Running, Skiing, Sailing – Crossfit most recently. I enjoy it. I also took part in some races. Not for being the fastest – for being part of it.

I’m having fun at doing sports. Right then, in the moment of doing it.

So, when I was at St. Gerold with a hundred of other guys we were learning about living a better life together. Be part of a community. Most of the time we learned about the art of hosting by executing the methods and tools, but there were also some teachings. In one of this teachings Toke Paludan Møller, a guy from Denmark who was part of the hosting team, talked about the the Four-Fold practice: Host yourself, be hosted, host others, co-create.

Then he said: “Don’t do it for goals. Do it for practice!” – and it moved me.

What it means to me: It is important to have goals, so that you don’t lose track and head in the right direction, but you never know if you reach them. Things might get frustrating. So do stuff just for the sake of doing it. Love what you do and your live will be a better one. Reaching goals is a bonus.

It helps me focus on the right thing.