One of the most used apps on my iPhone is the navigation app Waze.
It calculates the traffic on the roads around me and tells me what the most efficient way to travel is based on other drivers who are also using the app.
When there’s an accident or a lot of traffic around, I know I’m probably going to get to my destination more efficiently by using it. It’s a great guide to have, but that doesn’t mean it always gives me the best option.
Earlier this week a friend told me she couldn’t stand using Waze anymore, she felt it often took her in a slower direction, and that she did better most of the time using her own knowledge of the roads where she lives.
I thought about it and part of me agreed with what she was saying. Most of the time the app works great for me when I don’t know where I’m going. But often on the roads I know well, I often feel like I know a better way.
The app is a guide, but I know I can overrule the guide and go in a different direction when I feel I know the way.
The guides and systems we use in our lives don’t work the same way for others as they do for us, and you can guarantee those guides we rely on today, won’t always be the ones we live by tomorrow. That’s where being flexible with our approach and understanding what the options are in the moment can lead to better results.
Don’t Be Restricted by One Approach.
When we are dealing with things that are new or out of our control, it helps to have a guide, but this shouldn’t be 100% set in stone.
When I entered my very first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition as a white belt, I’d learnt a particular set of moves that I was convinced were going to work for me. In the lead up I trained only these moves, I visualised them and was so focussed on nailing them that when it came time for my first match they were all I tried to use.
The result. They didn’t work for me the way I thought! By the end of the match, I was completely gassed and my opponent had beaten me.
I realised after that match that I was too focussed on doing A, B and C in that specific order, rather than selecting the best letter of the alphabet I had available that would work most effectively in that particular moment.
In our lives, we put systems and guides in place to help us when we don’t know the way or the answers. But ultimately what we want to be able to do is to detach from those systems and not be reliant on them, so we can respond effectively, fluidly and in the moment, to respond to exactly what is happening and what is required. Like water.
From that moment as a white belt, I decided to take a more flexible mindset into my future matches and training. I would still use the moves and techniques I had, but not be too focused on using them in a particular way, but instead focus on the flow and tempo of a match as it happened. Pretty quickly my results improved dramatically and I was also enjoying the process and the creativity of Jiu-Jitsu more than ever.
Letting Go of the Uncontrollable
I used to find this same pattern happening to me when I was playing Rugby League and was over focussed on executing a particular move or set of outcomes that I felt needed to happen in a particular way.
Over focusing on one move, and trying to control what 25 other players might be doing around me would leave me to miss other available options. The most effective options I did take were almost always the moments where the expectations and guidelines were put to the side, and I made decisions without any expectation of a specific result.
Our performance and results improve when we let go of the need to control the things we can’t control.
When our head is crowded by thoughts of “I must achieve this”, or “I should be doing that” it’s so easy for our mind to get overrun, and our focus to be too narrow, instead of looking at the creative or new ways to solve what’s really happening in front of us.
As Bruce Lee once put it “It’s like a finger pointing the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you’ll miss all that heavenly glory.”
The finger is a guide, but ultimately in time, we will know what to do without it if it’s not there or if it’s pointing us in the wrong direction.
We can never fully control everything around us, and the guides we use to navigate the world won’t work the way we hoped they would all the time. That’s why developing a mindset of letting go of expectations, moving beyond the guidelines and being open to new approaches is beneficial in so many aspects of life.
Because that’s what life is, responding to change and taking opportunities to do something different.
