I spotted something on social media – someone remarked that the phrase below had really stuck with them, and helped:
“Thanks to whoever said ‘depression hates a moving target’ – it's now permanently burned into my brain.’
There's common sense in that and plenty of research to show that exercise is a great antidote (to pretty much everything, it's fair to say).
And then later that morning I had a coaching conversation with someone who's in the middle of a life transition: one career left behind recently, and they're in that soupy, grey area where nothing new has revealed itself. Yet.
And, maybe because the quote above was still relatively fresh in my mind, its flip-side suddenly occurred to me:
I don't necessarily mean that good ideas come to you while you're exercising or moving your body (although they very often do!), I mean on a deeper level.
When we're in transition, be that from one career to the next, a relationship, or even just stages of life, the big changes we experience obviously get our snow globe all shook up, and there's a necessary period of rest, recuperation and reflection to go through.
We have to give ourselves chance to adjust to our new reality.
But after that, when we're in that soupy, grey area of pure potential, looking for the next thing, it's really easy to think that opportunity or insight will come knocking, all on its own.
I mean, if we don't know what it is we want to do, that makes sense yeah? How can we move forward if we don't know what direction we want to go in?
But here's where the wisdom-loves-a-moving-target thing comes in. Because in order for something new (like opportunity, or insight) to happen, you need to be in new situations, meeting new people, having different conversations… you have to give life/the universe something to work with!
And that something is movement – in any direction (it really doesn't matter).
I'll never forget, years ago, going to a Mike Dooley seminar, and hearing him say,
“If you stay at home sitting on your couch with a vision board waiting for Oprah to call, there simply cannot be any accidents, coincidences, or serendipities.”
That one really stuck with me: sitting on the couch, waiting for Oprah to call! 🤣
(I have been guilty of that one, in the past. Not waiting for Oprah to call, but definitely waiting for someone, or something, to just drop into my lap and offer me the opportunity of a lifetime. I can even remember the moment I realised, with what I can only describe as ‘liberating-feeling horror’, that that wasn't going to happen! 😆)
And here's the important thing to know:
So if you're feeling stuck and a bit directionless, don't wait for ‘direction’ to find you. Throw yourself wholeheartedly into something—anything!—that gets you in new situations, meeting new people and having different conversations; something that gets you moving.
Because wisdom loves a moving target.
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
A really good one for those in the career change market