Being Mindful of "The Gap" // How to Avoid the Consequences of Reacting

I’d like you to imagine for one second been placed in charge of navigating a large cruise. And as captain of this big rig, you are responsible for ensuring that you and everyone else about makes it safely to the final destination.

The journey is going smoothly and so you decide to put the ship in cruise control and go straight south for the next few hours. During this time, you grab yourself some lunch, check Instagram a few times, watch a little Netflix, and catch a quick snooze.

Suddenly, you are awoken from your nap by your first mate who bursts into the cabin screaming that there is an iceberg dead ahead. You can see it’s about 1 km away but the ship is steaming ahead at full speed. As a last-ditch effort to avoid the gigantic chunk of ice, you throw the engine into reverse, grab the wheel and steer the 40,000-tonne ship starboard. Your adrenaline is pumping and the ship is showing little sign of slowing down. You continue to wrestle with the wheel, hoping that you’ve done enough to clear the iceberg.

It’s now less 200m away and you know it’s going to be close. A few moments later you are passing the iceberg bracing for impact. You wait with bated breath, knowing that at any moment you could hit.

Another 20 seconds pass and still nothing. You look out the window and see you are clear of danger. You breathe a sigh of relief, steer the ship back on course, and carry on to your final destination.

Facing the high seas of our own lives

For many of us, our lives and the goals we set for ourselves are similar to that of captain navigating a ship. This story is a simple one, but it serves as a great analogy for what happens if we do not pay attention to how we are pursuing our goals.

Between where you are now and where you could be in the future, there lies a gap. And as the gap increases in size — by weeks, months, or years — you are required to engage in a necessary amount of focus, discipline, and self-awareness if you want to reach your destination safely.

The problem is that sometimes we forget to be mindful of the gap. Bad habits creep in and patterns of thinking cause us to either go narrowly off course or forget entirely to pay attention to our problems until they are right in front of us.

This mindset is fine when things are going well. It is only when stressful moments arise and obstacles catch us off guard that we realize we’ve been sleeping at the wheel. And in an attempt to salvage the situation we make sudden and drastic changes. Sometimes we can just miss the iceberg and the ship keeps moving. From there we vow to be better, set a couple of new years resolutions, and put the ship back in cruise control until the next obstacle comes our way.

Let’s call this “The Path of Reacting”

Eventually, however, our luck will run out and either the iceberg will leave us with damage we cannot repair or it sinks us entirely.

These are the moments we often label are failures. These are the big games where we choke under pressure, the relationships that didn’t work out, or the loss of passion for your sport you “suddenly” discover. It is often not until we get hit within enough pain that we wake up we realize we haven’t been paying attention.

As sudden as these moments can feel, the reality is that “icebergs” of life do not come out of nowhere. Had we been paying attention, we would have seen it miles away and easily could have maneuvered around it.

We might call this “Path Path of Preparing”

We all know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but sometimes forget that it did not fall apart overnight either. It was a slow build and steady decay. Our lives work in the same manner. If you want to achieve something big, you must give value to the little steps that take you to where you want to go.

At the end of the day, the ship is going from point A to B regardless. But how you spend on your time while you are at sea, will ensure that you are prepared when you arrive.

This analogy isn’t perfect, but I think you get the point.

Within this gap between where we are and where we could be, we find something we might call “The Process”. It is here where success and failure are built. And if you do not give the little moments within the gap their value, your mindless exertion will lead you into places you do not want to be. Paying attention and exhibiting mindful effort is where we can find a balance between incremental growth, satisfaction from achievements, and a relentless sense of self-belief.

Today your ship left the port on a week-long journey. By the time we chat again next week, what do you hope to have accomplished? What small steps have you taken towards a bigger vision? In what ways have you been able to enjoy the process and not get caught up in wishful thinking? How have you made this week work in your favour?