• October 23, 2020

Hint … It’s Not A Turkey.

When we look at our calendars and see November, we conjure images with gatherings of friends and family, the start of the holiday season, and the slower pace of winter. I look back at my appointment diary from November 2019, and I am overwhelmed by the contrast of November 2020. We’ve had 7 months of surfing with day-to-day waves of ‘what now?’ and what I have learned is that I can’t count on a future based on images from the past.

“It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.” ― John Guare

I may not be able to carve a big turkey with family this year, but I can carve out time.

Time to think about what planning for the future really means and to prepare the right way.  

So yesterday may not have been . . . the best (insert sarcastic retort here), but we’re still standing! Maybe we have been dodging and weaving, but we are still on our feet, and that’s something. We may not be able to control what’s coming our way, but we can certainly control how we anticipate and prepare for it.

By now we are used to standing in the ocean with those unpredictable waves and getting saltwater up our noses. We’ve learned how to anticipate the lift from the bigger waves and jump to ride with them instead of getting pummeled from over our heads.

“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” – Thucydides

This November is not going to look like Novembers past, that much we know. Instead of wallowing in what can’t be, think of small changes and possibilities to reframe your present into what it can be. 

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Buckminster Fuller

Give yourself the time to reimagine your reality. To make a new model, make small changes, one step at a time. Small achievable changes that are the building blocks to an end.  

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” — Demosthenes 

Along the way, while you carve out the time to reimagine your reality, be sure to keep your vision focused and recognize what you can control and what you can’t, like the waves. 

To boil down a classic Stoic principle, if you desire things you cannot control, you are setting yourself up for failure like getting seawater up your nose. In this case, the cliche “keep your eyes on the prize” is a small piece of the process. Instead, pay close attention to the means toward that end. The details along the way are as important as the end goal itself. 

While we may not be carving turkeys this November as we have in the past, it’s time to rethink and reinvent what our immediate future can be.

“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”  – Simone de Beauvoir

About Cristina:

Cristina DiGiacomo is a Practical Philosopher who works with business leaders facing big challenges and teaches them how to think differently, see things in a new way, and find unique solutions so their companies thrive. For more about Cristina go here.