DevYou

Yesterday I talked a bit about not looking where you don’t want to go, and today I want to add a little cautionary note about that.

While it’s true that you shouldn’t look where you don’t want to go (so you don’t inadvertently go that way), that doesn’t mean you should blind yourself entirely to potential pitfalls. It’s good to know where you don’t want to go — you just shouldn’t focus excessively on it.

So, while “don’t look where you don’t want to go” means focusing your energy and attention on the direction you do want to go, it doesn’t mean you be oblivious to what you’re trying to avoid.

For example, let’s say you’re starting a new business. As we’ve all heard many times, many new businesses fail. There are all sorts of reasons your new business might flounder. Not assessing what those potential pitfalls are is foolhardy. But, in keeping with the principle of not looking where you don’t want to go, it’s better to focus your attention and energy on your potential success, not failures, even though you know they’re possible.

It’s just like riding that mountain bike down a twisty mountain trail with a deep rut down the middle. Only a fool would ignore the rut entirely, but focusing all of one’s attention on the rut is dangerous.

An exercise:

Can you think of a situation you’ve experienced recently that involved pitfalls you feared? Would you say you focused more on the potential good outcomes, or the potential bad outcomes? How did it all work out in the end?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under Mind, Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.