the Village Knittiot

I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years reading about mindfulness, the importance of staying in the moment, of focusing on one thing at a time and really savoring every experience. Sometimes I remember the things I have learned and find myself practicing them. I relish that sense of calm alertness and the feeling that I am completely satisfied right where I am. Most of the time, though, I am like everyone else — rushing around, living in the past, anticipating the future. Much of life is a reaction to the surrounding circumstances. And the ability to react is a crucial component of being human.

My private life very much resembles my professional life in this regard. Shortly after college (and a brief foray into grad school), I stumbled into a career in Marketing. As a fairly typical Aquarius, and a purple-haired, punk-rock girl at heart, learning to adjust to a corporate culture while maintaining my sense of self has been challenging. I have fallen on both sides of the conformity spectrum across the years and somehow managed to continue growing this career despite my best efforts to thwart it.

I have observed over the years that very, very few companies have a deliberate and focused marketing plan. And many of those that do find it falling by the wayside as they are “forced” to react to different circumstances around them. Two corporate buzz words I hear tossed around a lot are “reactionary” vs. “strategic.” In fact, these words are used so frequently that they have lost meaning for many people (though I rather suspect it is just that they didn’t truly understand them in the first place). We spend a lot of time talking about marketing driven companies versus sales driven companies. We try to convince the sales people of the benefits of a unified message and a strong “brand.” We show them how it affects the bottom line. But then we go right back to reacting when the next crisis arises. And the sales people go right back to doing what they need to do to get the sale. Essentially we are all reacting all the time.

In this type of reactionary climate (whether at home or work), it is difficult to find focus. And it is even more difficult to pinpoint what direction you are rushing off in so frantically. Those vital moments of clarity where you can see what is really important, what matters (or, as they say in the corporate world, what is effective long term or what has lasting impact) are missing. The confusion over what is effective in the moment and what is needed long term only muddies the waters further. Often one of these is ignored for the other. The truth is, we have to balance them both. But in order to make decisions about what is needed long term, we have to know what that is. That is, if we can stop reacting long enough to figure out just where we are trying to get to so darn fast.

This kind of long-term thinking and planning can get very difficult and leaves many people spinning their proverbial wheels. I can’t tell you the number of people I talk to (myself included) who are still trying to figure out what they want to out of this life. They feel frustrated by their current circumstances but unsure how to move forward. So many theoretical options. Very few actual ones. We get stuck trying to determine where to put our energy and efforts. And meanwhile, this busy world full of information keeps clamoring for our attention and offering us more than enough distractions to keep us wandering around and reacting to each new thing without providing any real sense of satisfaction.

My life is nothing if not a constant struggle to hold all of these things in balance. So, a couple of thoughts on avoiding ruts and moving forward while staying grounded:

1. Maintain a balance between what is effective in the moment and what your long term goals are. These actions should not directly contradict one another. If you have to backtrack because you missed a turn or discovered a new route, then that is being effective in the moment while continuing to move toward your goal. Moving in a new direction with no clear understanding of how it will get you where you are going may be a mistake (it might also be very good intuition — sometimes it is tough to tell the difference between the two).

2. Trust your instincts. In other words, listen to that still, calm voice that is speaking at the center of the storm.

3. Vision does not come to you in one single flash of inspiration — there are many lightning bolts and moments of clarity along the way. Keep things somewhat fluid and be open to change. Rigid adherence to a dead dream is a grueling ordeal.

4. The circumstances of life are often beyond your control. What you do have control over is your reaction to them. In other words, we don’t always get to make our path, but we can make the most of our path.

5. Dream big, but maintain a willingness to be realistic — especially when assigning tasks and goals. Nothing kills enthusiasm like a continual sense of failure. Celebrate your achievements along the way and make sure there are enough of them to bolster your spirits.

Alright, that is my big motivational speech of the week. Have a great weekend!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 7:04 am and is filed under this Random Life. 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.