CAN’T WIN WITHOUT…ZOOMING OUT
In last week’s newsletter, I talked about a valuable but challenging skill that winning often requires us to possess. It’s the ability to zoom in. Zooming in is about recognizing that in any important area of life, a successful outcome is the byproduct of the process it takes to get there. It’s about fighting the urge to focus on the destination, and instead recalibrating your energy and attention on giving your best to the moment you’re currently in. It’s about committing to win, right where your feet are. That’s good advice, because it puts you in the best position to earn the outcome you say you’re after.
So you might be a little surprised to read that this week I’m sharing what could very well feel like a contradictory message. This week I want to emphasize that you can’t win without…zooming out. Zooming out, believe it or not, is also a valuable but challenging skill, one our success also requires us to possess. In whatever important areas you’re working to win, there’s value in your ability to step back, see the big picture, and play the long game.
Zooming out is good for you because if you’re committed to doing the work, it allows you to see how far you’ve come. Zooming in highlights the hard work and difficult decisions that winning requires you to make yet again today, but zooming out provides some clarity on the progress your hard work has allowed you to make. If you’re committed to doing the work, then zooming out highlights that while you still aren’t yet the person or the player or the performer winning requires you to be, you are also not the person or the player or the performer you used to be. That's encouraging. For each of us, progress serves as fuel for continued growth. Zooming out is the only way to see it.
If, on the other hand, you’ve haven’t done the work, then zooming out is good for you because it eliminates your excuses and clarifies that, in some places you say you really care about, you are today pretty much where you were before. That project you’ve been meaning to start? That skill you said you wanted to build? That work you know your very best requires you to do? When we zoom in, it's easy to justify that today we are just too busy or too tired or too overwhelmed, and easy to convince ourselves that tomorrow, or next week, or sometime soon we’ll get things going. Often when we say that, we really mean it! But zooming out helps us separate our good intentions from the reality of our inaction.
Finally, zooming out is good for you because it helps ensure that the work you’re doing is in fact the right work. Each of us are responsible for clarifying what success for us looks like. Maybe for you success is as simple and binary as the score on the scoreboard. But maybe success for you is bigger than that. Maybe it’s also about the difference your work makes or the impact it has. However you define it, zooming out helps you validate that your effort is moving you in the right direction. There are plenty of people out there who are working hard to climb the mountain. Unfortunately, they don’t realize they’re climbing the wrong mountain. Zooming in helps you recognize the work that’s in front of you today. Zooming out helps you validate that it’s work you'll be proud of and that you won't regret.
So what, you may be thinking here today, are you supposed to do? If you want to win, should you focus on zooming in or focus on zooming out? To you I say, yes! Your very best today requires you to embrace the process and do the work. That’s what zooming in allows you to do. But it also requires you to step back, see the big picture, and play the long game. That’s what zooming out allows you to do. On their own, each one is valuable. But to be your very best - to earn the success you say you're after, today and tomorrow? You'll need to do both.
