Test Your Awareness – Do the Test… Find the indicator that you are looking for in life…

Step 1: Watch the short video and see if you can do what they are asking?

Step 2:  Contemplate how this relates to your life…

When I say contemplate I am not so much asking whether or not you are looking out for cyclists.  Although this is very effective and I support it because I too like to ride my bike and sometimes tow the trailer with my kids.

What I mean is, think about the catch phrase you see at the end…

It’s easy to miss something you are not looking for…

This is truly powerful and you must remind yourself each and every day to look for the things that you normally are not looking for.

How does that work you might ask?

Indicators!

I often follow my indicators and see how the dots connect.  As stated in the Steve Jobs Commencement Speech…”Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” – Steve Jobs. 

Sure, it is hard to connect the dots moving forward because often we do not know where the next dot is going to show up.  Looking back you can see all the dots and easily draw a line from one to the next.

Think about where you live today…I am sure you can say exactly how you ended up in the house you are currently living in. I am sure you can say…”This happened and then that happened and then you wouldn’t believe, but this other thing happened and here I am today.”

Indicators are like the little gas light in your car.  It is a nice reminder light that turns on…Letting you know what will eventually happen…You will run out of gas.  Now the key part here is that something “will” happen.  You will run out of gas, unless you take a different course of action. 

You have two actions to take.  One is to pull into a gas station and get gas or the other is to let your car run out of gas and you will be stranded.  Either way you are 100% in control of what the outcome is.  The cool thing about this is that the indicator gave you an insight into what the future would hold.  Gas or no gas, it told you that an action was about to happen.

So if you take your day and you say…”A strange thing happened today…or…I had this interesting thought…or…I met someone today that made me think?”  These are all indicators that you must look deeper into and follow up with.

Recently, I was in an art shop looking at the works of Thomas D. Mangelsen.  Maybe the name does not ring a bell, but he is famous for capturing the shot/photo of a lifetime.  During the running of the salmon he caught a bear, mouth wide open, and a fish about to land in the bear’s mouth.  The name of the shot… “Catch of the Day.” .  Just think about that title itself and how powerful it is.  Maybe it should be called, “Catch of a Lifetime”?  Depending on whether you ask the bear or Thomas D. Mangelsen.

The timing was impeccable.  During the discussion with the staff member I was told that he shot 80+ rolls of film on that trip and sat on the photos for weeks before developing them.  He then developed them and the shot that we all know today is the one that started his whole career.  It is quite possible that without that shot that his career would not be what it is today.

Later on that night I was looking back through my day and thinking about some of the indicators that may have come up.  (They are not always apparent, you sometimes have to look for them…thus the phrase…It’s easy to miss something you are not looking for.)  Then an indicator came into light, just like the gas light that comes on in your car.

The indicator told me that a project that I had on the table was the exact one that I had to follow in order to fulfill my journey in life.  This final product resulting from this project could very well be my “Catch of the Day Photo” for me.  I now know that I must follow through and I must put 100% of my energy into this project.

There have been many indicators that have told me that I must follow through with this project, but I had not taken full note of them until now. Similiar to how the gas gauge tells you that you are full, 1/2 full, 1/4 tank and empty.  The indicators are there with you the whole way during your journey, but it was the final one (the gas light) that told me that I must take an action or I will be stranded.  In this case, possibly stranded in my life.

I choose to take the action of “follow through” instead of running out of gas and being stranded.  This will definitely give me enough gas to get to the end of my chosen journey.  Following these indicators will most definitly prove that I can be successful and I can reach all my dreams.

What indicators have you been missing in your life?  Are you about to run out of gas without taking action?