Imagine yourself behind the wheel of a sports car. Cherry red paint with jet black leather interior. You’re driving up a mountain pass on a warm summer night. There are no streetlights, just the dim glow of the half moon and the star speckled night sky. It is dark. The kind of dark you don’t get in cities or on interstates. You are all alone on this tranquil but treacherous road.
The thought crosses your mind, “If I crashed, would anyone ever know? Would anyone ever find me?”
You snap back into focus as another hairpin turn emerges at the end of your headlights. You tap the brakes, turn the wheel, and punch the accelerator on the other side.
On this drive, in the pitch black, in the middle of nowhere, you can only see what your headlights illuminate. Your only option is to focus on the next 200 feet ahead. Nothing further ahead, nothing behind, and certainly nothing to either side. Your undivided attention on the next 200 feet is required at all times.
Life is no different.
We are all guilty of allowing our attention to stray from our next 200 feet. It’s easy to get distracted and allow our focus to be drawn elsewhere. This can come in many forms but they can all be boiled down into three basic distractions.
Looking Ahead
It is easy to allow our attention to venture too far off into the future and linger there for too long. We can get caught up in future plans, goals, or dreams and completely lose sight of where we are and what is immediately ahead of us.
This is an easy trap to fall into because planning and goal-setting are universally recognized as positive activities. But, there are three traps associated with looking ahead:
First, you can become discouraged by how far away you are from achieving the long-term goals. Living too far in the future can cause you to miss the present and become discontent with where you are today.
Second, you can become blind to the near-term obstacles. If you are climbing a mountain and you are staring at the peak the whole time, you are going to repeatedly trip over obstacles right in front of you, with a low likelihood of ever cresting the summit. (More on this concept here: Keep Your Eyes On The Prize)
Third, we can get stuck in the planning. If we spend too much time trying to map out our 10-year plan, we will miss what’s happening in the next 200 feet. Planning is not a bad thing, in fact it’s a prerequisite to achieving much of anything. But when planning become procrastination that’s a big problem.
Looking Behind
Driving your car while staring into the rearview mirror causes an obvious problem, you can’t see where you’re going! This may seem obvious but so many people get stuck in the routine of fixating on the past. This comes in two versions.
First, you can look back with regret, shame, or disappointment. You have made mistakes and you have had failures. You haven’t lived up the expectations or hype and life hasn’t turned out quite like it should have. If you had only gotten that chance, that job, that sale. You got passed up or you missed your opportunity and that stings.
Join the club! Everyone has struggled, stumbled, and failed (Read more: Chase Failure). Reflecting and learning from past mistakes is one thing, but dwelling on the past or living with regret is a whole other animal. This habit can lead to a never-ending cycle of discouragement and discontentment.
Second, you can look back with pride. This can follow a season of success where a sense of accomplishment can linger beyond its healthy timeframe. Think of the high school jock that relives the glory days any chance he gets.
This is the idea of resting on your laurels and thinking you’ve "made it." Focusing on past achievement can stunt your ability to pursue anything meaningful in the next 200 feet.
Either way, life continues to move forward, with or without us. No matter what has happened in the past, there is nothing we can do to change it. Reflection on the past can be very useful, dwelling on the past can be very painful.
Looking To The Side
This is by far the most dangerous way to drive your car. Looking out the window, staring at the world around you, you are lulled into a false sense of awareness because you can see ahead out of the corner of your eye while you fixate on everything else in the world.
This is how many of us live our lives, mindlessly navigating our own road while we dial in our focus on everyone and everything around us. This comes in two forms.
First, we can get caught up in our environment. We can fixate on our circumstance and become discouraged with everything going on around us. This could be our job, our neighborhood, our politics, or anything else that is outside of our control but we decide to allow it to dictate our attitude and effort. (More on this here: Control)
Second, we can get too focused on other people. This is exceedingly easy with social media to constantly view other people’s lives and compare our lives with theirs. This can be celebrities, athletes, influencers, or simply family and friends. Beware of this trap.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
No matter what or who you are looking at out the window, if you find yourself in this comparison game, the effect is the same: discontentment with your situation and lack of focus on the next 200 feet.
I was first introduced to this idea by Aaron Barrett, a former teammate of mine with the Washington Nationals. Give him a quick Google, his story is nothing short of incredible. When we played together, he would say, “200 feet,” out load, dozens of times a day as a way to refocus himself on the task at hand. Any time he would notice his focus stray, he would audibly say “200 feet.”
Worried about the next game? 200 feet. Just gave up a home run? 200 feet. Questioning the umpire? 200 feet.
Anytime there was a deviation in his focus, that short phrase reminded him to lock back into what’s important.
This is a practical tool we can all benefit from. When we find ourselves longing for and lingering in the future – 200 feet. When we get stuck fixating on the past – 200 feet. When we are looking around in comparison – 200 feet.
What will you do with your next 200 feet?
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