Do you suffer from tunnel vision?
Sometimes tunnel vision is a good thing, like when you really need to focus on the task at hand and not get distracted.
However, tunnel vision can also keep us from unexpected pleasures, opportunities and successes. Narrowing our vision can close us off to possibilities we hadn't seen before.
Here's an example. Today is the first of my 2-day away business planning sessions. I decided to leave home at 6:30 AM, stopping at Cavallo Point for an early morning drop-in yoga class. I'd be at my B&B, settled in to work by 11:00. I'd stop work around 2:30, drive to nearby Point Reyes for a hike or jog, then return to the B&B to work all evening. Or so was the plan.
But the day didn't go as planned. Although I had checked, yoga was canceled this morning. It would be too early to check in at the B&B if I went directly there. Fortunately, tunnel vision hadn't set it, so I could see the possibilities.
I went directly to the Bear Valley Trail head at Pt. Reyes for a fast-paced (it was cold!) hike for about 90 minutes. I had the pleasure of having the entire trail and Divide Meadow to myself, so enjoyed a bit of yoga before returning to my car. I could enjoy the solitude, the burble of water in the creek, and beauty of the ferns.
I checked in at the B&B at the intended time, and after warming up the room and eating a hot lunch, I was ready to buckle down to work, well exercised and ready for the tunnel vision that will helped me stay focused all afternoon and evening on the task at hand - business review and planning 2017.
The unexpected bonus: by early afternoonthe rain began (hooray!!) so I wouldn't have had much of a hike any way!
Tunnel vision; make it work for you at the right times, but don't let it close off opportunities and new possibilities.
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