I resonate with so much of what you've said that I can't possibly highlight it all, particularly as I'm writing from a horizontal position while I try to nurse an injured back. But to underscore a few key points....

It is so true that we often limit what can happen for us with our own faulty conception of what is possible and/or what is right for us. I too am so glad I failed to achieve all my goals of early life. I'd have been a ego-maniacal monster!

I am glad that life had grander plans for me, plans that continue to unfold in the form of unexpected blessings. Right now I appear to be buying a house in Taos, a place I'd never imagined going just a couple months ago. (I'm an island girl, not desert.) One thing after another keeps lining up around that and permaculture, community building, and natural building, the seeds of which I can see planted in my life across the decades, but which never added up to anything before.

I do think goals can be useful, but only if they are held more as the stepping stones you refer to. Sometimes we can only see the real destination once we've taken the step we can see. We grow in the taking of that first step, such that we now are the person who has the capacity to take the next one. So long as we're satisfied with this pattern, all is good.

I like to think of it as a spiral of creation rather than a line. If we look for life to progress as a line, we wind up discouraged when it seems like we're revisiting the same issues again and again, still not quite hitting the mark. But if we see it as a spiral, we know we're coming around that point again, but this time in an orbit that's closer to the center. This gives us that elusive sense of progress we humans so crave.

Btw, I also lived in Bali for a bit, though only a year. I was dancing there, teaching it and studying it. I also started channeling while I was there. Incredible place! Really attuned me to the spirit-led life, where the only prayer is "yes."