Vision or Fixation
With one eye on the goal, you only have one eye left for the path.
Over the weekend I read a Zen parable I had never heard before, but one I have lived over and over.
A young man goes to a master and asks, “Master, if I study harder than all of your other students, how long will it take me to reach enlightenment?”
“Ten years,” the master replies.
“What if I work twice as hard, day and night?” asked the young man.
“Twenty years. Work even harder, it will be thirty.”
“Why do you keep adding years?” responds the young man.
“Because with one eye on the goal, you only have one eye left for the path.”
As performers we do this all the time. We mistake the goal for the vision. The goal is the number, the title, the championship. The vision is the outcome and experience. It's how we will feel, how we will live, who we will be when we get there.
Vision gives us direction and trust. But when we hold too tightly to one outcome, direction becomes fixation. We stop seeing the path. We stop enjoying it. Eventually, we can even begin to resent it. Then we push harder. We put in more time. We become even more focused on our singular fixation.
The closer we get, the further away it can begin to feel. This is where Performance Depression sets in. The belief that no matter how much we accomplish, it isn't enough. No matter how hard we work, we aren't going to get there.
The problem isn't that we are not making progress. We simply become so fixated that we stop experiencing where we are. We start seeing everything as an obstacle. We lose our own trust.
Look at yourself or your organization right now.
Are you moving toward a vision, aware of the path you're already on? Or have you become so attached to a single outcome that everything between here and there feels like something to get through?