Goals in Trucking

My goal is to find a better career than trucking. It sucks.

 

Don't die or become paralyzed in a crash.

After that, the rest is just stuff.

 

I should expand on my last post.

Goals are good, but don't set them in stone or ink.
Maybe pencil, so they can be erased, and rewritten.

Some people get so caught up in goals, that if they don't turn out, then they get depressed.
Life happens, we cannot control most things that happen to us.
My mother passed away, I miss here every day.
The only man I've ever been in love with died.
This plandemic just got thrust on all of us regular citizens.
Crashes happen, or your truck catches on fire, a million things that are out of our control happen to us, and we have zero control over them.

A few years ago my Papa began talking about one day retiring, then he mentioned it more and more often. Last summer he said well its time to retire so all of you drivers best make other arrangements.
If I were smarter, I would have bought 1 truck, and 1 logging trailer, and been my own 1 truck company. But Papa was sad that his company was going to be closed, so along with my baby sister, we are buying it.
Do I want to? Not really, but am.
When Papa passes away, I would like to sell it off as a whole, or in pieces. Then decide if its the right time to retire, or become a 1 truck operation.
Most of the reason I am buying it all is for my dad, so he doesn't have to struggle to sell it, or sell it off in pieces, which would break his heart.
No matter what I do in the future, I want to retire by age 55, move away, and enjoy the peace and quiet of my retirement.
So I do have goals in a way.
But not hard set 1 year, 5 year, 10 year types of goals.

But my day to day goal is still not to crash. There are many terrible drivers out there on public roads, so be careful.

 

To retire.

 

My number one goal while I am on the road is to make sure I make it home safely to my family. Now, with that being my number one goal that means keeping my truck running and driving safely and getting my work done.

I own my truck and trailer and I am a mechanic. I spend a lot of time while off duty looking over the truck at the end of my day to make sure that nothing is going to keep me from getting my work done and it makes my pre-trip a lot easier.

Another goal of mine that I try to complete on a daily basis is to make someone else's day better by paying forward the good that I have been blessed with. Sometimes it is a hello and a handshake and other times it's buying someone dinner.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and got to be with their families and have a Happy New Year.

 

I don't have long term goals. I do set goals on each run. If I plan each trip, I'll set a goal to make it past a major city before rush hour, or to be parked in a certain spot by the time inrun out of hours. Sometimes I like to set a goal to run at least 3k miles in a week, then reward myself with a steak dinner if it happens lol, but that one isn't really that serious. As a company driver, I have to hope my dispatcher likes me mlre than other drivers that week to make it happen lol

 

I'm at the very beginning of my road.

My goal right now is to pass CDL, get some training, and spend a year OTR learning to be safe, efficient and professional.

 

My goal is to be safe. When I was younger starting out I was a hot head, I’d get out of the truck and engage in confrontation, and drive fast.a few years in I learned that wasn’t smart and I had to protect my license. Now At 35 years old my goal is to stay as cool as I can behind the wheel, and protect the idiots around me even tho sometimes they don’t deserve it. Next is keeping the truck looking good, and in good mechanical shape, and then remembering why I chose this career, going on almost 16 years of driving trucks. I wanted to do it because I love it, some days I have to remember that. Remember the days of not being able to sleep the night before because my boss was sending me on a new run somewhere and my truck was shiny. Or when I moved into 1 of the nicest trucks my boss owned at the time how excited I was. Then when I started going over the road, how exciting what was over the Horizonte next bend was for me. And it still is to this day. The financial aspect is just a bonus honestly. So those are my 3 top goals, if they make sense.