At the start of the year, when I sit down and set out my goals for what I want to get done by the end of the year, I can paint a very clear picture of where I am now and where I'd like to be in a year. I can outline a path from now to there just as clearly.

But as the days progress, I get so caught up in navigating the day to day hurdles that come up that if I map where I am today (in August) to where I should have been as per the clear path I laid out in January, it is nowhere close to a perfect overlap.

This happens in a lot of areas in life and in work, because we don't have full control of the variables that we encounter during the course.

A flight that takes off from Amsterdam headed to New York, can end up in Rio even if there is a change of a few degrees early on that are too minuscule to notice. And when that happens on a rocket ship going from Earth to Mars, it can be even more catastrophic in result.

In our day to day interactions, like the wind blowing at the plane, our direction might change just a little bit for us to notice. But a few months along that line and we'll be way off course to where we were originally headed.

I've started to zoom out often and course correct.

This is my weekly check on myself as I sit down to reflect on the week that went by and to plan for the week up ahead.

Zooming out to course correct at regular intervals ensures we don't stray too far off course at any point in time and are always within reach of the original path we set out on.