Hell Yeah! Life®: 3 Signs You're Living in a Blind Spot
I bought my car last February. It’s a little Kia Soul Turbo. I had no idea they had turbo Kia Soul’s until my husband found them on the Internet. I was like, “What?! Turbo? Shoot yeah!” I had a 2016 Kia Soul at the time that I had paid off that October, I believe. And my dream for 2020 was to give away a car. I was able to make that dream a reality but needed another car. Once I found out the turbo thing, I headed to a nearby city to pick mine up. I love my little car. It has a sports mode that will give any car a run for its money. It has heated seats and steering wheel (the best!), a sunroof, and some safety features like “blind spot” alerts.
A blind spot is when your view is temporarily obstructed. We’ve probably all tried to change lanes totally unaware of the car that’s in our blind spot. I hate that! The adrenaline dump of almost wrecking is the worst! With my new car, it alerts me when someone is in my blind spot with a signal and a light that comes on in my dashboard and my mirror. I love it! I feel safer. I wish we could take that technology and apply it to humans.
WHAT EXACTLY ARE BLIND SPOTS?
I do a lot of mentoring. And it never ceases to amaze me how blind we can be. I’ll be sitting with a person listening to them describe the issues they’re facing (usually relationship issues) and ponder, “How is it that this person can’t see that they are the common denominator in all of these scenarios and past and current relationship fails?” I also notice that there are repetitive patterns. Dating and marrying the same type of person that makes them miserable. Getting into debt over and over. Moving from one place to the next over and over trying to finally find that ONE place that will easily hand them all they are wanting.
These are blind spots—those places of repetitive thoughts and actions that put us right back where we started.
Did you know that your mind will filter out all that seems unnecessary to your current focus? The best example of this is when we want to buy a new car. All of a sudden we see the car that we want EVERYWHERE! That happened to me when I had decided to buy a Kia Soul. I saw them everywhere I went. I then found myself planning and then taking action to get one. My brain literally served up what I wanted most. It does that—good or bad.
The problem with the brain’s unique ability of trying to help us get what we want is it can cause tunnel vision or what I call “over attachment to an expected outcome.” This is where you are so focused on HOW things are going to turn out that you’re blind to other scenarios and outcomes and become increasingly frustrated when your expected outcome doesn’t happen the way you want it.
Let me give you an example. When I developed my business, Genius Communication, LLC, I envisioned it as an online course business only. I worked for months developing my course material, recording videos, learning how to set it up online, and how to use Facebook ads and social media to promote it. Well, that didn’t turn out how I expected. I still haven’t sold a single course online. It’s always been to local people who know me. But I had learned a long time ago not to quit and to look for other opportunities. I was discouraged but not defeated. There was no way I was going to let go of my dream. But it just might look different at least at first.
Fast forward a month after I launched. I was conducting some personality training at my local Chamber’s Leadership Clovis class. I got my first local client in that class. The problem was I wasn’t looking for local clients and that wasn’t my business model. But I saw an opportunity so I quickly adapted my training for local clients. After that I got asked if I help people hire. Nope, but I will. Do you do social media work? Nope, but I will. Do you build websites? Not anymore, but I will. I mean the list kept growing where I now have a lucrative local business. Have I given up on my original idea? No. I am patient. It will happen. I don’t take obstacles or set backs as signs. I take them as incentives. Life is Research and Development. The key is not to get stuck in patterns (blind spots). The purpose of Research and Development is to figure out what works and what doesn’t then pivot.
SIGNS YOUR IN A BLIND SPOT
The biggest sign of a blind spot is you keep finding yourself in the same situations and relationships. You need to pause and break down the situation or relationship and look for the commonalities like attitudes, characteristics of those in your life, behaviors, actions, etc.
Hitting a brick wall. This one is when you are going for a dream or goal and keep hitting a wall every time you think you’re making progress. It’s like the rug is pulled out from you repeatedly. This is the perfect place to reevaluate what your outcome is going to look like. I see this with business owners a lot. They want the end dream of their business now. My question is, “Have you ever birthed a full-grown adult?” Right. So what makes someone think that they can birth a full-grown business right off the bat. Every. Single. Business. Takes years to build. You have to start where you can with excellence and superb service. That will take you to your goal faster than searching for the perfect community, the perfect employees, the perfect investors, etc.
Deja vu. This is finding yourself in the same relationship, the same job situation, the same financial problems, and any other circumstance you can think of. If you were to sit down and write out your life, would it be like the movie, “Groundhog Day?” The main character, Phil, woke up each day and went through the exact events as the day before. His life was an endless loop until he did the one thing that stopped it. I remember mentoring a man who sleeps too much due to depression. I told him that he had to break the cycle of coming home, immediately changing into comfy clothes, and going to bed. He had to create an intentional interrupt to that habit by grabbing his dogs leash and decided that one these two days a week, I’m taking my dog for a five minute walk. Over time, his brain would love the sense of accomplishment, and he could add more days. But he could NOT continue doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. You have to break the cycle by making a different decision of action.
Safety features you can put in place
We might not have the awesome lane safety technology in our brains, but we can put some safety features in place to help us avoid and get out of blind spots in life.
I highly recommend inviting two people you trust to speak into your life any blind spots or patterns they see. You have to give them permission to do so without any response of anger or defensive from you. These need to be people that will say something. Many won’t. You can ask them and they’ll agree to, but because they hate conflict, they won’t say anything.
Regularly take stock of your life. Look back at the last three months, six months, or year and write down any repetitive frustrations you’ve been experiencing. Ask yourself if maybe you’ve over attached to an expected outcome that is either out of timing or just not realistic right now. Then ask yourself, “How can I accomplish this goal differently? What pivot is needed? What can I do differently? What opportunities are right before me that will get me closer?”
And, finally, be aware of your go-to thought and behavioral habits, your reactions versus responses. If you always feel like quitting and walking away, don’t. If you always feel like tearing into your spouse for the same things, don’t. If you always feel like hitting the bottle, don’t. Only you can interrupt the cycle by doing the opposite of what you normally do.
POnder this
Our blind spots affect those around us, especially those that are closest to us. We do not live on one-man islands. It’s a lie that our decisions don’t affect others. There’s always a chain reaction. There’s always a butterfly effect. You don’t want to live your life making everyone around you happy except yourself. But you do have to consider how others will be affected.
