Visualize Like a Pilot | Periphery Success
Practically everyone knows how to set and achieve goals. Individual goal setting ignites the drive to perform quality work. Equally as important are team achievements. Goal-focused teams are essential to maximizing productivity, whether launching a rocket, producing a business conference, or planning a family reunion cruise.
Even with a sincere commitment to clearly defined goals, failure is always a possibility. It’s more common for people to fail than to succeed at achieving dream goals. Exceeding expectations is particularly rare. Why is this a phenomenon?
In the goal-creation phase, people resort to tunnel vision, which can lead to narrow-minded thinking and traditional objectives. Tunnel vision benefits tasks that require laser focus, such as threading a needle or shooting a basketball free throw.
The sharpest focus of our physical vision is directly in front of us. It’s our field of vision that resembles a target. Outside our main line of vision is the peripheral vision, which is constantly active but not as a focal point. You can detect motion better with your peripheral vision, so homing in on it makes you more aware of what’s happening around you.
Pilots are taught to use peripheral vision to steadily scan the sky for hazards such as light illusions or central blind spots. It takes practice, creativity, and concentration to recognize peripheral opportunities. You must make a conscious effort to use your mind and physical sight differently in visualizing goals and strategically planning areas of significance.
Understand the rules and how the game is played on your job or in a social situation. But know that the rules are a guide to help you thrive. If you are not thriving under those conditions, create change. Find a new avenue for how to gain camaraderie, increase sales, or expand productivity.
What appears as a need is not always what is necessary to complete a task. The tendency to look and not see is normal but can cause confusion. To avoid career collisions in your life, you must expand how you visualize, literally and metaphorically.
It’s imperative to recognize that utilizing your peripheral vision does not mean you turn away from your main vision to check out the sidelines. That would entail refocusing your eyes to a different target point. When pilots land a plane at night, they primarily use their central vision while incorporating their peripheral vision with their eyes focused straight ahead.
Motion Detectors
Professional athletes have also mastered the balance of applying their tunnel and peripheral vision. Olympian runners never turn their head to size up opponents during a race. They do, however, use their peripheral sight to detect motion. When necessary, they exert more effort to propel their body forward. Strictly using tunnel vision or refocusing on peripheral throughout a long-distance race could be detrimental.
The same is true with your professional endeavors. When you experience a massive fail, immediately tap into your peripheral vision. If you deprive yourself of vital information along your journey, you will miss out on peripheral opportunities.
Our peripheral vision is often used to detect faint light sources at night such as stars. Consider faint light sources as an opportunity with little or no pay. When you look at the sky, you might think you are looking at a star. If you download the SkyView app, it will show that you’re looking at a planet. An opportunity may appear faint because of your vantage point.
Peripheral vision can be used to find a job or even a date. Pay attention to your environment. Consider the people you know distantly and those you know well, the places you frequently and rarely go, the content you enjoy and dislike, and especially home in on the physical roads of your day-to-day travel.
Here in Los Angeles, we have the luxury of accessing the 405 freeway, which is the most congested freeway in the United States. On any given day, there are over four hundred thousand cars traveling on the 405. One day while driving on the 405, there was a waving motion directing my attention to look, so I did. A dear college friend was driving in the adjacent car. He signaled me to get off at the next exit. We confirmed that our contact information for each other was current.
As I was driving away, I thought about the odds of seeing someone I knew on such a busy expressway. It wasn’t as if we had attended the same event and then left at the same time. He had just moved to Los Angeles, and I had only been there a short couple of months.
Believe it or not, we started hanging out frequently after that day. Now, Arthur and I have been married for fifteen years. Creating your own yes means producing unforgettable experiences and recognizing the best people to help you thrive and expand your vision.