This photo explains the reason why so many people never accomplish their dreams. It explains why we gain weight, why we start on the road to greatness and never show up, and why really smart, ambitious, and hard working amazing people will never amount to anything. Listen up, because if you understand this concept as I explain it below, you might end up being one of the few that achieves everything you set out to in life.
First, let me explain the photo. On the right is my red Keurig coffee machine which no longer works. Knowing that it would take ten days to get a replacement from Keurig, I bought a new Keurig since Lord knows I can’t go without my coffee for ten minutes, never mind ten days. Of course, I had every intention of returning the broken, red Keurig machine, and upon receiving my replacement I would put it in storage so that next time my coffee machine broke I would have a back up. That was three months ago and I have not yet contacted Keurig. Procrastination can zap away your dreams, but there is something much worse than procrastination, and it is something I refer to as The Camouflage Principle.
Everyone knows what procrastination is and most have suffered from it at one time or another. Procrastination is simply when we have every intention of doing something yet we choose not to, despite the intent we hold in our hearts. Procrastination is an enemy to greatness for sure. If we are consumed by procrastination, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to move past the status quo. We become stagnant. On a positive note, however, procrastination is something we are aware of and so, if we are really inclined to move beyond the status quo, we will eventually do what we said we were going to do. That is unless procrastination’s ugly brother, The Camouflage Principle sets in.
Saturday night, three months after I had purchased my new coffee machine, I noticed that I still had two coffee machines sitting on my counter. How ugly! How unusual! If any stranger walked into my kitchen the first thing they would notice is that I have two coffee machines sitting side by side taking up counter space. I had stopped noticing it because I was facing the problem (the coffee machine that needed to be returned) head on for so long that I stopped noticing it. The reason The Camouflage Principle is so dangerous is because we can’t see it. Procrastination is tangible…we know we are putting something off. The Camouflage Principle is invisible.
What is The Camouflage Principle? It’s the problem you stopped noticing. You become completely unaware of something which is necessary to accomplishing your dreams. What I’m talking about are tangible steps that you once knew you had to complete in order to accomplish your goal. These tangible steps which were at one time clear as day, slowly disappear, to the point you could look directly at the cues that would have one time inspired action and you now see nothing. You go from a state of awareness to unaware.
Have you ever seen the show on TLC about hoarders. There are people who keep hoarding so much stuff in their homes and yards that they don’t even notice that they are living in complete squalor. There are dead animals amongst the piles of filth and yet these people don’t even see or smell anything unusual about their surroundings because they have become accustomed to seeing it. Just like I had become accustomed to seeing two coffee machines sitting on my counter for three months. This is The Camouflage Principle. The dual coffee machines became part of my kitchen landscape just like the squalor becomes the landscape to a hoarder. The necessary steps to move forward blend in with the background of our lives to the point we no longer notice them.
When was the last time you took a step back to figure out what business practices, marketing materials, and technology you are using that are costing you business. Was your website state of the art twelve years ago and now it’s obsolete, but you are so used to seeing it that you have stopped really seeing it? How about the collateral material you are using for presentations and marketing? When was the last time you really looked at it?
Take a look at your daily routines. Did you just kind of sort of stop going to the gym in March, and forgot that you have a gym membership, and so your goal of working out three times a week went by the wayside without your even noticing? You see that gym payment on your credit card each month, but seeing it and being aware of it are different. You are not aware of that gym payment any longer and so the payment no longer acts as part of the cue to get you to take action toward your original goal. The gym payment has been camoflauged, you no longer see it, it’s now just part of the landscape. How about that routine you started of getting to the office earlier than anyone else, or of waking up at 5 am to get two hours of solid work in before any of your colleagues woke up.
If you aren’t careful about being aware of your surroundings and what you are doing daily to achieve your dreams, then you cannot possibly get there. There are moves that you must make daily to get where you want to go. If you don’t make those moves, if you procrastinate, there’s a good chance that the moves will be camouflaged to the point that you will look at them daily but never see them. Days, weeks, years, could go by and you haven’t moved an inch toward your goals. Maybe you wake up and your kid tells you that you are living in squalor and the family cat is buried beneath the ruins. Even worse, you wake up and realize that your dream, now ten years away, is much further than the remaining years of your life.
Today I will do something about that coffee machine because I know if I do that, it’s one step forward. More importantly, by doing something about it, I remain sharp, aware that if I don’t pay close attention to where I’m going or how I am going to get there, I’ll be one of the average, the mediocre, who never achieves my potential. What are you looking at without seeing?
Are you saying you will thank those that have referred you business? Done business with you? Invited you to a Mastermind group? And then put it off; procrastinated; excused yourself to mediocrity?
Stop it and Go out and create great habits ~ Jay
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