I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from writing over the past couple months because I felt I really needed to refocus myself a little bit and give myself the time and space to step up from the weeds of life and career and get some perspective on how I want to frame my future. I found myself not feeling like I was progressing myself internally in a meaningful way, and I was reminded of one of my favourite quotes:
It’s only when you drop yesterday’s assumptions that you can glimpse tomorrow’s patterns and possibilities. To see deeper, unsee first. – Umair Haq
I needed to take a bit of time to “unsee” things so that I could have the context and perspective to consciously plan out the next steps of my life. In doing so I found myself talking with a lot of friends, acquaintances, and strangers about the interesting challenges of life, the unpredictability of the obstacles we will be faced with, and our various approaches to dealing with them.
I heard everything from the standard clichés to religious mantras to quantum physics as a base for approaching things, and as usual I learned from each of those ideas and stitched together my own viewpoint which is more of a melting pot of concepts than a direct tie back to any of the advice I was given.
The one thing that stood out loud and clear to me though was that we can only be as successful as we think or want to be. And then it is our responsibility to go out and make it happen.
As much as our friends and family want to see us succeed, the reality is that they can provide support and encouragement, but we need to own the actions. And no matter how much you say you might want to succeed, if you spend your day internally doubting your ability to deliver you are very likely to fail.
So my focus over the last 60 days or so has been on refocusing my thinking, reframing my context to a new reality, and doing everything I can to make myself feel better – physically, mentally, and emotionally. My friends and family have been a tremendous support mechanism and source of encouraging power, and I’ve done my best to leverage that powerful energy into a more positive frame of mind, a more balanced approach to life, and some new big dreams that are more aligned to my own internal needs right now.
Last night I really struggled to sleep because for some reason my mind was racing and to be honest I was a little worried that I was losing my focus again, but I awoke this morning feeling further enlightened. It seems my mind was racing over the threshold of a breakthrough, and today I am rejuvenated and I feel like a million dollars. I know where my life is going, I know what I need to do to make it happen, and I feel confident in my ability to get there. Life is good.
One final thought to leave you with that crossed my mind this morning as I watched the negativity of the news:
When you feel like a million dollars, someone sharing their negative two cents has very little impact.
– Tim Empringham
Tim Empringham is a passionate advocate for Innovation in organizations of all sizes as a mechanism to drive growth, create uncontested market space, create new customer value, and drive efficiency into the internal organization. His focus is on disruption of thinking and markets through integrative thinking, structured Innovation frameworks, and leadership development of Innovation and Change leaders within the organization.
