Decisions, sometimes tiny, sometimes large thought out ones, they take you inches off your course day after day until one day you wake up and you wonder where you’re lost, who you are, what you love vs what you must, your values, and if you are a business, where your profits and revenues lie, where your future roadmap’s headed – definitely not where it was meant to. And if there’s a way back.

 

It happens with websites, it happens with product GUIs, it happens with brand extensions and it happens with life.

 

We give away what we love, we give away our low cost structures, our uniqueness and our strengths, and we become lifeless or we stand prematurely old.

 

The change is so vast with neither the beginning nor the end in sight, that to get back to a semblance of where we still want to be takes nothing short of painful, systemic revamp. 

 

It isn’t that you shouldn’t change. Change is a definite part of life.

So is improvisation.

Sometimes they add to a fresh new path – a fresh lease of life, like they do with the ocean currents. The wind, the sun, the continents, island chains, they all conspire to make the moving currents. But it all adds up to life, letting life live, to make earth a hospitable place. But sometimes, they are killing if you are caught in the wrong current at the wrong time.

 

What’s the way in?

Never for a moment lose sight of what you set out to do.

Never lose sight of what you love.

Never lose sight of what gives you a kick.

 

If there’s anything that can hold you to your path, it’s this, bringing you back to it time and again, because now each deviating decision is a conscious decision, marked on a personal road map even if a blurry one, giving you more chances than one. 

 

It’s a little like the smart bombs. Once they lock on to the target, they don’t lose sight. Except in the rare cases where cloud cover or obstacles come in the way.

 

But it isn’t as easy as that.

It still takes a tremendous amount of energy, the ability to withstand uncertainty and of swimming against the tide, there still are hard decisions to take, but then, you will have chances in life – chances to at least have a foot in the loved thing, if not move into it completely – someday.

One fine morning if you wake up in the jungle, would you look for your office shoes to go to the non-existent office and the attendant security, looking to sit down at your safe-in-the-hole desk?

An extreme metaphor, but true enough in our lives.

We don’t wake up in the jungle, but we don’t wake up to just another day either. We wake to a different day, a different story, a different project, a different document, a different launch, a different customer.

But most days, we ready ourselves for just another day.

Not a new day, not a new beginning. Just another day.

We carry our old notions, old habits, old learnings – The Old Highways in the Brain – and begin the new day as if it can take us to the next level of experience, exhilaration, growth and yes, income too. But then, we walk where we are – on a treadmill. Going nowhere in our minds, except ratcheting up our heart beats a bit to keep ourselves alive.

Unable to take us out of our own corner.

Unable to place ourselves in new shoes.

Unable to free think our minds.

I truly believe that all of us want to free think. Assuming for the moment that this is true, how do we help ourselves do it? ‘Cause it’s a learning, it’s about finding the door that opens us to the ability to free think. And the door is different for each.

Some I’ve listed, there would be more.

Fear of failure and a related reason – lacking in self-confidence – fear of contending with authority, fear of being laughed at, fear of being called a fool, fear of……… Can we for just a day in our lives set aside the mind numbing fear and let our minds hop, skip and jump?

Pressure that builds up in the confusion of vast amounts of previously unknown information and factors when we set out on a new task – until it all slowly becomes familiar and we just need to hang in there, juggling the balls mentally till they fall into a pattern – till the core, the sticky point reveals itself.

Beginner’s Block – Plenty to do with the reluctance to let go of our safe, known corner and begin anything new.

Arrogance – Every new thing is a place of ignorance to begin with. The inability to shrug off our I-am-Wise badge, go to people and learn from them from scratch and not let this ability diminish with age, time or labels.

Let’s take the first step of recognising our door. The key search can only come after that.