This morning my husband was busy making coffee in the kitchen and he went to the fridge to get the milk. Next thing I hear “Honey, where’s the milk? I swear we opened a new one yesterday. Surely we didn’t go through a whole liter in one day?”.
I quickly went to the kitchen to rescue the situation, opened the fridge and there the milk was, staring right back at me. I quickly grabbed it and gave it to him “Here you go”.
Husband: “Where did you find it?”
Me: “In the fridge, top shelf, right in front”.
Husband: (looks at me in total disbelief).
I’m sure I’m not the only one that this has happened to. Sound familiar?
Many times, we cannot see the things that are staring right at us – the solution to a problem, an opportunity we’ve been waiting for, etc. Why is this?
One could use the old adage “too close to the project”. Yes, that’s true – but there’s so much more to consider.
Reason 1 – You’re way too stressed
It’s amazing the effect that stress has on you. It causes sleeping and eating pattern changes, loss of focus, physiological effects, etc.
What this means is that you may struggle to focus and you will miss the opportunities that may lie in front of your eyes because you’re too focused on the source of your stress.
Lesson: learn to manage your stress levels so that they don’t affect your progress in life.
Reason 2 – There’s too much going on
Modern life is really really busy and the pandemic has not helped at all. Most of us who have jobs are doing more than one person’s work and those of us who do not have jobs have so much going on just trying to survive.
It is a well-known fact that we are exposed to more information in one day than our grandparents were in their entire lives. And our “FOMO” (fear of missing out) drives us to know as much as possible just in case we might need that tidbit of information at a later stage.
Lesson: de-clutter your activities and stop being busy being busy
Reason 3 – You’re way too distracted
There are so many things that can distract us in modern life. That series on Netflix, that pesky game on your mobile phone. Oh, and don’t forget social media.
Take a step back – do you really need all that distraction in your life? I doubt it. I’m not saying cut it out all together – rather, pay attention to how much time you spend on these activities and trim it down so that you have more time to do something productive.
Lesson: limit your time on digital distraction and be disciplined about it.
Reason 4 – You don’t believe that there is a solution
You have no idea how common this is. Most people can’t see the opportunities that lie in front of them because they don’t believe that they deserve them and they don’t believe that they can find a solution to improve their lives.
Limiting beliefs are holding people back from achieving amazing things! We are all filled with inner magic and most of us cannot see our own potential.
Lesson: work on eradicating your limiting beliefs.
CONCLUSION
Make a commitment to yourself today to work on the lessons learnt from this article. You are amazing! If you clear your mind from the clutter, de-stress, eliminate distraction and work on your limiting beliefs, you can accomplish amazing things and will find the solutions you are looking for.
Go for it – what are you waiting for?
Here’s something to think about:
“When you give yourself the gift of some morning peace away from your busyness, the hardwired capacity of every human brain to access the realm of pure genius becomes activated.” – Robin Sharma, The 5AM Club
