One detail of life that people stop paying attention to after a while

When we fail at reaching a goal,

it’s often because we’ve been blind-sided by the detail we knew existed,

but stopped paying attention to.

Rather than having got too excited by the goal itself.

This becomes obvious when you listen to the stories people tell.

Stories about the change they wish to bring in their life,

their career,

and the details they give.

On how they hope things will unfold between now and then, for instance.

“First, I’ll ____ (fill the blank).”

Then, I’ll be able to ____ (fill the blank again).”

And if all goes well, as I hope it will, then _____ (fill this other blank).”

At some point in their story, though,

they’ll talk about why they haven’t started doing “that thing they know they should do” yet.

To make this change happen.

This is also when these new stories start to sound old.

Like other tales you’ve heard before.

Of someone who had a goal for a while.

Like “going to college” or “getting a promotion at work”.

Something that seemed just a little bit out of her league,

but that she still wanted to achieve.

Until her bubble burst,

when she learned what needed to be done.

“It looked so hard… I wish it didn’t” is the kind of comment you often hear at the end of these stories.

Here’s how Bernadette Jiwa [1] puts this “hearable” deja-vu:

“We all want the sequence, the step-by-step, the foolproof, guaranteed-not-to-fail method. (…).”

The problem with only wishing achieving a goal was easy…

and guaranteed to succeed…

is that it makes us blind.

Blind to a couple opportunities.

Of using what we already have, for skills and knowledge.

Of learning something new about a topic.

Of discovering we’re capable of doing something we never thought we had the talent for.

It also makes us blind to a fact.

That any success gets easier to repeat only once we’ve learned “how to make it happen” the hard way.

A detail about life you and I know but tend to stop giving attention to, over time.

Until we’re reminded of it, whenever we fail at (any) goal that got us excited.

– – References – – – –

[1] Bernadette Jiwa – The First Step In Setting A Marketing Campaign ( https://thestoryoftelling.com/first-step-building-marketing-campaign/ )