The other day I opened up a post office box at my local Canada Post depot. A young girl in training was assisting me. Because of her inexperience, it took about 15 minutes to process the information. During this time, a lineup of 10 customers accumulated behind me. Feeling sorry for her, I walked away hoping she was not going to get yelled at by all the waiting customers.
I saw her a couple of days later and asked if she had any irate customers after I left. Surprisedly, she said no! I also commented how incredibly calm and focused she was knowing there was a huge lineup behind me. Smiling at me, she said....'I was totally focused on you and what I had to do, because if I looked at the line behind you, I would have freaked out!'
Looking at her I thought to myself...how can someone so young have so much wisdom? She had the ability to automatically focus on the task at hand, without being distracted with what lay ahead for her! Which reminds me of my dad's camera....
My dad had a Rikoh camera, the hottest and newest model at the time (25 years ago), that had a red dot in the middle of the lense. If your eye focused on the dot, and you fiddled with the lense until the dot came into focus, then you were ready to shoot your picture. If the dot was out of focus, then the picture produced would also be out of focus. I am sure this was quite revoluntary at the time.
I, in turn, own a great Kodak camera, that does everything automatically for me (expect my dishes, unfortunately!). It automatically forwards, automatically rewinds, automatically focuses...auto-everything! No effort, not thought, no fuss on my part.
There is a great quote from a book called "Seven Steps to Self-Fulfillment", by Walter Anderson and he states: "Focus on the solution, not the problem". The young clerk, in her infinite wisdom, focused on the solution and that was to process my application. She chose not to focus on the problem and that was the huge lineup behind me. Like the camera, she automatically focused on the object (me) in order to produce a well defined image! (processing my application).
Reflecting on the lesson learned from this for the last couple of days, I share with you some 'focused' thoughts:
1. Focusing allows you to have 'short optics'! Your eye is your lense and is the focal point of your attention. Focus your optics (your eye) on the task at hand for the moment and exclude what is accumulating behind you. It allows you to live in the now. As one of my favourite authors, Louise Hay, says...."the point of power is always in the present".
2. Focusing is a learned skill, easily trainable and accessible. Through practice, you can focus automatically, unconsciously bringing your body and mind into alignment. Like my camera...no fuss, no thought, and no effort. A simple concept, that we have access to not only every day, but every hour of our day.
3. Focusing produces calmness and keeps you grounded. Be aware next time of your body and mind when you are reading something important....like a legal document. When your focus is centralized on something, it may exclude sounds and it may heighten body awareness such as your breathing or heart-beat.
4. Focusing helps eliminate fear, anxiety and paralysis. If that young clerk lost her focus and looked behind me, I am certain she would have become flustered, made mistakes, and probably would have taken longer with my application. In other words, she would have become un-focused.
So, keep your eyes focused on the lense of life,be prepared to shoot, and produce a great picture: a sharper, clearer and auto-focused YOU!!
Nominated for Canada 100 Most Powerful Women, Canada's Diamond Coach Adele Alfano is an award-winning professional speaker, author and co-publisher who has helped thousands of people capitalize on their unique abilities to maximize their potential through her specially designed systems. Her proven techniques have helped people mine passion and purpose in their lives and in an evolving workplace. Adele is also the co-author, co-editor and publisher for a series of collaborative books titled Experts Who Speak Books and is also the founder of the sold-out fundraising events in Southwestern Ontario called Kiss my Tiara!