Obstacles

Whether it be at work or at home, when you look at the path in front of you, do you see obstacles or a way forward? Over recent weeks at Inspirations HQ, it seemed as if there were more obstacles on our path than usual. And if we’re honest, these obstacles were all we could see for a time!

A run of short work weeks at the office due to Easter and ANZAC day holidays saw us trying to squeeze our To Do Lists into fewer days. Then, when some unavoidable delays were added to our particularly tight production schedule, we felt as if we were scrambling to find a path forward.

Luckily an email from The Tonic pointed us in the direction of Simon Sinek who reminded us that obstacles are what we make of them.

Focus on the path instead of the obstacles.

Simon’s theory is built on the fact that you can’t tell the human brain not to do something. So, when we frame things in the negative, we actually reinforce them. To illustrate this, he uses the example of skiers going through trees.

Do you know how they do that? It’s surprisingly easy. They know that if they focus on the trees, all they’ll see are the trees. Instead, they focus on following the snow. That way, the only thing they see is the path before them.

Simon’s work encouraged us to take our eyes off the items on our To Do Lists we were yet to get to, and the inevitable delays we were experiencing. And do you know what we saw instead? The path forward.

We reprioritised the hours and tasks before us and came up with some creative solutions to bring our production schedules back on track, and what a welcome relief that was – no more hitting trees for us!

The email from The Tonic went on to remind us that we will always see what we look at. There will always be obstacles, but there’s always a path through the obstacles, so we must choose where we put our focus wisely.

We’re determined to remember this not only when it comes to all things Inspirations HQ related, but also in our time with needle and thread.

Next time we come up against an obstacle in our stitching, instead of focusing on the obstacle and saying, ‘I can’t do this’, we’re going to say ‘I’m going to keep doing this’, which will ensure our focus stays on the path before us. That way we’ll find ourselves continually moving forward, no matter how challenging the terrain on the path may be.