Two steps forward, One step back

When I was a kid, I used to sing along to a song that talked about going "two steps forward and one step back". I remember thinking, "gee, this is silly! What does this even mean! Why would you need to go forward and then back again?!"

I never understood the meaning of the song, the saying or the purpose of these "setbacks" in real life.

I'm a get-it-done type of person. If I've had the moment to plan my strategy in my head of how I envision completing something swiftly, I like to execute that plan with as few snags as possible.
I've also realized how determined I can be. When I set my mind to do something in a certain amount of time, I push past roadblocks that fall in my path and I just keep going. I attempt to stick to plan A or sometimes B as long as I can. Sometimes life just has its own path which looks nothing like my beautiful plan constructed somewhere in my mind's eye.

I just had an a-ha moment where I got a glimpse of what "two steps forward and one step back" just might mean in the real world of my life. 
Sometimes we think, "this is finally it". 
We think we've skipped a few steps, maybe we feel like we've been behind and we're finally catching up. Either way, we make some progress...but then there's a setback or we realize we're not as far down the road as we thought... *sigh

But, the steps that seem backward are apart of the journey.
The journey just keeps going on. It's not over till it's over.
We'll keep walking and making u-turns and taking unexpected detours.
In the construction, in the slowing and even when it seems like we're backtracking, there's got to be a purpose.
The struggle to believe that, to accept where we are and keep going on from there is all apart of the journey.