Don't let your eyes wander
There is a principle in tracking that says: don't let your eyes wander. In other words, stay focused on what is in front of you, what you see, and what you know. Why would you doubt if it's already there?
"I have had to do a lot of survival stuff in my life and this is probably one of the most important, namely not to lose focus. In business, we could simply talk about management focus. There is just too much stuff and because of the complexity, we begin to fall between stuff and struggle to focus on what is important.
But it cuts even deeper into survival. Two things in survival will steal a lot of your energy and pose a great threat to you. One is your fear and the other is your guilt or just plain anger. People are angry not only at what they have done but also at what others have done to them. This anger or guilt about what went wrong is even worse now after the pandemic. What makes it very bad is the emotion of anger, which in turn impacts your self-worth as a person. You only have so much energy each day for this journey and you can't afford to waste most of it on things that aren't that important. Of course, if you lose track of your own life and it continues for too long, it has a devastating impact on you as a person.
The point is if you are not focused on the track of life or business you are going to waste a lot of energy. I guess this is probably where most dreams are destroyed and just because of our fears or otherwise our guilt and anger. We are just very frustrated with what others have done to us.
We have created a world where people are not allowed to make mistakes. In other words, we put all kinds of systems in place that are meant to protect, just to make sure we don't get caught. System stuff, rules, and regulations steal the freedom of people to do only the probable more. We as humans intuitively know much more than we think. We know what's right, it's just that we can't trust ourselves anymore because we can't afford to make a mistake or otherwise take risks.
We would like to move on in this life, all of us. But the fact is, many times we are in our own way. A lesson I had to learn is: as long as the enemy is not inside you, the apparent enemy outside can do nothing to you. We do these things to ourselves by allowing the things beyond our control that frustrate and frighten us to take up most of our precious time.
I was very hard on myself. Call it high standards or my need not to make a mistake. Maybe I was just too scared by nature. The fact is, the biggest mistake I've made is living in the uncertainty that I'm going to make a mistake or that what I'm doing just might not be good enough. I think I was born in the era of this type of 'anxiety' and grew up in the era of 'self-interest' and this combination is deadly if you don't manage it effectively. Here the focus is again only on yourself. This was also part of my time and it is not easy to change.
Today, mercifully, I don't struggle so much anymore. What helped me:
• To make peace with things in my earlier life! Silly stuff. The journey is not over and therefore if necessary, you can choose again. You simply have to make more time for the really important things!
• There are few things as important as being decisive and purposeful! To know where you are going and why.
• I guess sharing your journey with others is also quite important. I couldn't get it right at first. Keep things to myself. Everything inside. Sharing with others is better.
• I was just too full of myself, my own stuff. Most of the time everything is just about myself. The question of how you take others with you on the trip never came up. For me, it was very difficult to understand that others can also be part of my journey. Take input for your journey from others.
• I had to learn to deal with my fear by focusing on the things I can directly influence or change and just leave the rest.
• Then I had to learn to forgive. First, forgive me for mistakes made and then forgive others. Not just the big stuff, but the small stuff just as much as the big stuff.
I guess in the last instance if you are true to yourself and who you are then all of this becomes easier. The fact is, we can be on track and stay focused. The art of life is to be authentic and dignified in this.
So if you know that you are on track with your life (true to who you are) - don't let your eyes wander, but stay focused and follow the track you were meant to tread.
Callie Roos