It strikes me that the greater the area you have to swim in the more you will explore and discover, and the richer your experience will be.
If you liken this to your life, your dreams, or your business the same is true – except that experiences, expectations, and self-belief often conspire to restrict the size of your ocean. They may not even be your experiences and expectations, but those of the people who influence you, care about you and spend time with you. Before you know it the vast oceans you saw as a small child have shrunk to a safe area by the beach, or worse a swimming pool.
What I mean is, we start out with great plans and great expectations for ourselves, but as things become difficult or doubts creep in we start to review our plan and create all sorts of obstacles and reasons why we can’t do something, or why it’s different for us. So eventually we settle for swimming in a smaller safe area.
There are three kinds of obstacle in my ocean:
- The lighthouses
- The currents along the way
- The sharks
Lighthouses
These are material obstacles are that can make pursuing your dream practically difficult. They are things you can’t just plough through; you need to navigate around them.
They might include things like:
- Financial constraint
- Family commitments
- Your health or fitness
- Your current skills and knowledge
- Profile and contacts in your industry
- Access to your ideal clients
None of these are insurmountable if you work them into your plan. Remember lighthouses are there to illuminate the way, and keep you from crashing against the rocks. If you believe they are impossible to navigate round it might be your obstacles are sharks not lighthouses.
Currents
The second group of obstacles are the currents you run into on your voyage, the things that might throw you off track, or even worse drown you if you don’t take action to keep safe. These are things you hadn’t planned for, or expected to encounter, they change the horizon, even if temporarily.
The key to navigating the tides is in the way you react; your behaviour, your attitude, and, most of all, the action you take. We all perceive circumstances differently and that perception can make all the difference in how we ride the waves. Our responses, the energy and the passion (positive or negative) that we put into the situation, impacts on how those around us react too. Choose to interpret obstacles and events in a way that empowers and reinforces your path to success. This may be by navigating a different route, it may mean going back and learning how to navigate this particular current or it may mean maintaining focus and direction and riding out the storm. It doesn’t mean ignoring what’s happening and swimming against the waves as this will eventually exhaust you.
Again if you really can’t find a way to navigate the currents you should check they are not sharks.
Sharks
The sharks are the thinks that appear in your ocean, the beliefs, expectations and experiences that keep you close to the shore, in safe water – or your comfort zone. These are the most dangerous of obstacles because they are internal, somewhere in your subconscious. They stem from fear, a perception of lack, or your attitude and they can stop you from taking action all together.
Big fears include:
- Failure
- Success
- Ridicule
- Lack of money
- Not being good enough, etc.
A huge amount of energy and time is wasted worrying about the what-if’s, and because we overthink stuff, we imagine so many variants and different scenarios, we can finish up confused and paralysed. In other words afraid to go into the oceans in case the sharks get us. The only real way out of fear is to take action and move through the fear. Before you can do this you need to understand what, specifically, you are afraid of, where it comes from and what you are prepared to do to resolve it.
The good news is that by developing your Success Mindset you will identify this and tackle these obstacles. To learn more about Lynda Holt’s 7 Steps to a Success Mindset visit http://www.lyndaholt.co.uk or get her latest book ‘Get Out Of Your Own Way – how to stop sabotaging your business and stand out in a crowded market’ available on Amazon