Where Is Your Focus?
With all the shipping delays and chaos the pandemic caused, we had waited months and months for a new gate to come in for our property. Once it arrived, the installation was problematic. After many struggles, the new gate was finally installed and operational. No more hoping the remote would work, jumping out of the car in the rain to manually open it, or scaling the fence when nothing else worked!
I could not believe my eyes.
Then, we showed up at our property for a relaxing weekend and noticed that someone had damaged the gate! I could not believe my eyes. What was it with this gate?
Upon inspection we realized that only one side was damaged. Thankfully, the opening and closing functions were still operational! Disappointed but grateful we made plans for repair.
On the day we were preparing to leave for home, we were driving through the gate and my partner, who’d still not fully gotten over the damage, was driving. She was so focused on the damaged side that she misjudged how close she was to the good side of the gate and bam, she hit it.
Thankfully, she didn’t damage anything further than it was already damaged, but what occurred to me in that moment was how often we focus on what is wrong instead of protecting what is right.
Watch where you focus.
Many of my clients contact me to talk about a specific negative trait in one employee or a snag in one process. As we talk through their concern, I become aware of how much mental real estate this challenge is taking up in their brain. They are spending so much attention and focus on wrangling this problem, that their focus is not on protecting all the things that are right.
Often they are operating under the assumption that if they could just resolve this one issue, everything else will fall into place. However, what is really happening is that they are out of balance in terms of where they are focusing.
And they risk, like my partner did, damaging what is already in great shape.
Restore balance.
My goal is to help them to come back into balance, and to focus on what is worth protecting and building while solving the challenging problem.
What many clients don’t realize is that while they are focused on the one challenge or problem, other employees are watching. They are beginning to get the message that to get your attention, there needs to be a problem. And soon, even the people and areas where things are going smoothly start developing cracks and demanding more attention.
If this sounds familiar to you, it may be time to rebalance where your attention is. The last thing you want to do is to create more drama and chaos by damaging what is already working well.
If you need consultation on a specific challenge or problem, schedule a laser coaching session and let’s deal with it quickly and then get you right back on track: http://ncdsolution.com/laser