How To Use Imaginary Space Travel As Your Unlimited Source of Clarity & Motivation..
One of the traps of business, or any endeavor, is to keep focused solely on the “doings” that businesses need to get done. Our nature is get drawn into the stickiness of “concentration”.
When you are at the movies, you may be aware of sitting in the cinema. Then, moments later, you are completely contained in whatever place the director of the (great) film has moved you to.
You are no longer sitting in the cinema – you are in space, or in a desert, or somewhere.
Your focus can not be in both places at the same time. Not only that, you will not be consciously aware that you have moved from the cinema – until something pulls you back. The film might end, you might get a cramp in your foot, the person in the next row might cough loudly. And then you will be conscious again that it is a film.
When you are working “in” your business, that is where your focus is. Delivering great customer service, completing a sales proposal, completing tax reports, driving the truck safely…
It is only when something “pulls” you from that reality, does your conscious awareness shift.
There is a term that confuses a lot of people called “working ON your business”. One simple way to determine if you awareness is ON the business is to think in terms of elevation.
If you are “IN” busy traffic – you see the cars in front of you, beside you, behind you.
If you are in the traffic reporting helicopter looking on the mass of cars – you might consider yourself “ON” the traffic.
What if you periodically took the time to take a “helicopter” view of your business?
From that height and distance you will have a different focus.
Questions like – just where exactly is my business going – and is that what I want for it and myself?
What are the opportunities that I can see from my helicopter – that I did not see while ‘in” the traffic (business)?
What are the challenges ahead that I can see now from the chopper – how can I avoid them or profit from them?
In a nutshell – use the altered view to get insights and clarity around your business, how it operates, it’s environment, and whether it requires an adjustment to give you what you want from it.
In a sense this is what a good business coach can help you with – sort of like someone to firmly lift you out of the business so you can look “ONTO” it.
There is another level of course, and it can help with making decisions about change in your business.
It involves using a spaceship and going first into orbit around our Earth.
From there, the significance of the decisions that we make IN our businesses is made puny. Our individual business is unlikely to even be visible from orbit. From there in orbit – it is easier to use a different emotion to think about what is important about our businesses. The distance allows us to disconnect from the (probably) petty pressures that would otherwise direct our thinking if we were still right “IN” our businesses. We can become more aware, literally, of the “bigger picture”.
If we zoom off to a place where even the Earth is not visible – we can allow ourselves to further bathe in that ‘bigger picture’.
One of the definitions of leadership that I like simply refers to a leader as someone who can see a greater distance and bring a greater benefit to all because of it. There are obviously other skills in leadership – but the ability to switch from wide to narrow focus and back again ranks very highly among them.
It is this that allows a leader to share a (big) “vision” that enrolls followers to move in the direction of the vision.
So – the lesson?
Invest the time to pop out for a regular (daily or weekly) helicopter trip to look “ON” to your business (and your life in general). What would happen if you did this BEFORE your daily/weekly team meetings?
And then regularly – at least quarterly – slip off into space and from there determine that you are doing what is most important in your business (and you life).
This “bigger view” will help you get clarity on your values (what is important to you). And that combined with your (big) vision, and your role clarity (what you need to get done) – will create an unlimited source of motivation for you.
Have a surprisingly awesome day!
James Hooper
Business Coach Townsville