Face in the Direction You Want to Head In
Today I had a travelcard for Zone 5 for this week so today instead of catching the bus to Thornton Heath I ended up jogging to to East Croydon. I have to confess that I wasn't in the ideal mood to run. My muscles felt tired and my knees felt like a worn out gate hinge, but that only made me more determind to at not deny my self from doing what I knew I was capable of doing. To make it easy on myself I simply started jogging. Nothing tremendous at first but the key ingredient was I didn't look into the distance, I merely kept my eyes down on the road knowing that I was heading in the right direction. This way I wouldn't get overwhelmed by how far I still had to go I just had to make sure I was facing in the right direction and kept moving. If would see soon enough if I had to swerve to avoid anything or anyone in my way so it made the jog much easier. In fact without the mental energy used up on thinking about the distance I was able to speed up a bit, and then a bit more until I was galloping pretty quickly. Soon enough I was only 100 metres from the station and could look up and really sprint for the line.
That experience got me thinking. We often heard that famous phrase or quotation, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. I don’t think there is one person on earth that could disagree with that statement. BUT…! But what? The but is that you need to know where you want to go. Everyone is putting one foot in front of the other right now. Even if you are feel you aren't, you are! You may however be taking steps forward and then turning around to face where you've just came from and taking your next steps in back in that direction, or simply just taking steps with no idea. You know what I mean don’t you? Yes, you do… I know that about you because, if you’re anything at all like me, then you've done this before and if you’re anything like me more than once!
It’s taken me many years to understand the concept of defining what it is that I want or simply the direction I want to go in. Very often I would in effect say I don’t care where I'm going as long as I don’t go back there! The effect was I went back “there” because the “there” dominated my thoughts even though said I no to whatever that was. Then other times I would think I want to be over there and it seemed easily possible and sooner or later and as natural as rain, I was over there, right where I wanted to be. I was on a roll. Then for some reason I would lose direction and veer off the track and into the wilderness again. I would wander around the wilderness, eventually get seriously fed up again and see where the target out of there and then get my life back on track again.
Well if any of you can relate to this then that’s fine. I don’t think it’s totally bad to have done this in fact I now can view it as an advantage. A bit like people that didn't pass there driving test first time (I actually passed first time both my Motorcycle and car driving tests, but until recently would never admit to being particular brilliant at either) it could be said that they are at an advantage as they will respect what it takes to drive a car, plus they have had more teaching. Those that passed first time could get a bit cocky or complacent.
The key to solving anything is, of course first and foremost, awareness. If you have no idea there is a problem to solve then you could be in trouble. One day if you may wake up to find that you are really far from where you want to be and maybe no idea where you would like to be. It can happen so easily too. Especially if you lose focus in any area in of your life and a reason why balance is the key... home, physical, spiritual, social, business/career etc.
One of the things that you can do however is to get really deep down and maybe a little childish and ridiculous with it. What I mean by that is get a writing pad and a pencil or pen and pretend you're a kid again. Pretend you're going to create the ultimate Christmas list of all the things you would like to have or have happen. Go for it get ridiculous or outrageous. If you think it's too much what I would suggest is "GO DO IT ANYWAY!" What do you have to lose? Whenever I feel lost or of track give myself a physical shake and grab a pen and make like NIKE and just do it. You wanna know the cool thing about it too, is that I ALWAYS feel better after I've done this. Always!
I triggers new ideas gets the juices flowing again like a dog that's picked up the trail - which isn't too far from the truth, I'm off again.
I'll end here, but I urge you to give it a go. I dare you to start writing and see how cool it feels afterwards.
Today I had a travelcard for Zone 5 for this week so today instead of catching the bus to Thornton Heath I ended up jogging to to East Croydon. I have to confess that I wasn't in the ideal mood to run. My muscles felt tired and my knees felt like a worn out gate hinge, but that only made me more determind to at not deny my self from doing what I knew I was capable of doing. To make it easy on myself I simply started jogging. Nothing tremendous at first but the key ingredient was I didn't look into the distance, I merely kept my eyes down on the road knowing that I was heading in the right direction. This way I wouldn't get overwhelmed by how far I still had to go I just had to make sure I was facing in the right direction and kept moving. If would see soon enough if I had to swerve to avoid anything or anyone in my way so it made the jog much easier. In fact without the mental energy used up on thinking about the distance I was able to speed up a bit, and then a bit more until I was galloping pretty quickly. Soon enough I was only 100 metres from the station and could look up and really sprint for the line.
That experience got me thinking. We often heard that famous phrase or quotation, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. I don’t think there is one person on earth that could disagree with that statement. BUT…! But what? The but is that you need to know where you want to go. Everyone is putting one foot in front of the other right now. Even if you are feel you aren't, you are! You may however be taking steps forward and then turning around to face where you've just came from and taking your next steps in back in that direction, or simply just taking steps with no idea. You know what I mean don’t you? Yes, you do… I know that about you because, if you’re anything at all like me, then you've done this before and if you’re anything like me more than once!
It’s taken me many years to understand the concept of defining what it is that I want or simply the direction I want to go in. Very often I would in effect say I don’t care where I'm going as long as I don’t go back there! The effect was I went back “there” because the “there” dominated my thoughts even though said I no to whatever that was. Then other times I would think I want to be over there and it seemed easily possible and sooner or later and as natural as rain, I was over there, right where I wanted to be. I was on a roll. Then for some reason I would lose direction and veer off the track and into the wilderness again. I would wander around the wilderness, eventually get seriously fed up again and see where the target out of there and then get my life back on track again.
Well if any of you can relate to this then that’s fine. I don’t think it’s totally bad to have done this in fact I now can view it as an advantage. A bit like people that didn't pass there driving test first time (I actually passed first time both my Motorcycle and car driving tests, but until recently would never admit to being particular brilliant at either) it could be said that they are at an advantage as they will respect what it takes to drive a car, plus they have had more teaching. Those that passed first time could get a bit cocky or complacent.
The key to solving anything is, of course first and foremost, awareness. If you have no idea there is a problem to solve then you could be in trouble. One day if you may wake up to find that you are really far from where you want to be and maybe no idea where you would like to be. It can happen so easily too. Especially if you lose focus in any area in of your life and a reason why balance is the key... home, physical, spiritual, social, business/career etc.
One of the things that you can do however is to get really deep down and maybe a little childish and ridiculous with it. What I mean by that is get a writing pad and a pencil or pen and pretend you're a kid again. Pretend you're going to create the ultimate Christmas list of all the things you would like to have or have happen. Go for it get ridiculous or outrageous. If you think it's too much what I would suggest is "GO DO IT ANYWAY!" What do you have to lose? Whenever I feel lost or of track give myself a physical shake and grab a pen and make like NIKE and just do it. You wanna know the cool thing about it too, is that I ALWAYS feel better after I've done this. Always!
I triggers new ideas gets the juices flowing again like a dog that's picked up the trail - which isn't too far from the truth, I'm off again.
I'll end here, but I urge you to give it a go. I dare you to start writing and see how cool it feels afterwards.
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