Plan a trip to the moon lately?

“On its way to landing astronauts safely on the surface of the moon, the miracle of modern engineering that was an Apollo rocket was actually on course only 2 to 3 percent of the time. Which means that for at least 97 percent of the time it took to get from the Earth to the moon it was off course. In a journey of nearly a quarter of a million miles, the vehicle was actually on track for only 7,500 miles. Or to put it another way, for every half-hour the ship was in flight, it was on course for less than one minute. And it reached the moon—safely—and returned to tell the tale.

How was such a thing possible? Because modern space travel is a masterful example of slight edge course-correction in action.

If this machine, at the time one of the most sophisticated, expensive, and finely calibrated pieces of technology ever devised, was correcting its own off-course errors twenty-nine minutes out of every thirty, is it reasonable to expect that you could do better than that? Let’s say you were able to match an Apollo rocket’s degree of accuracy in the pursuit of your own goals: that would mean that you’d be perfectly on target and on course no more than ten days in any given year. The next time you’re giving yourself a hard time because you feel like you’ve gotten off track, think about the Apollo program, and give yourself a break.”

—Jeff Olson from The Slight Edge

Imagine the Apollo mission.

A 250,000 mile trip to the moon. And they’re only on course for 7,500 of those miles. Following the same math, you’re likely to only be perfectly on course 10 days out of the whole year. (Hah!!)

Lesson 1: Allow yourself to feel a little off course.

Lesson 2: Know where you’re headed! And, in Jeff’s words, have a burning desire backed by faith (a la Napoleon Hill) to get there.

Here’s a little Napoleon Hill gem to capture the importance of our burning desire: “The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat. If you find yourself lacking in persistence, this weakness may be removed by building a stronger fire under your desires.”

Plus: “The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on despite all opposition, until they attain their goal. There may be no heroic connotation to the word ‘persistence,’ but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel.”

So, let’s remember: We need to know when we’re off and then re-commit to our simple daily disciplines as we get back on track en route to our destination.

And we need to do that again and again and again. (And again and again and again.)

Here’s to continuous course correction and embracing the mistakes and failures en route to our ultimate success!