Success Is Like Skiing Blind

I had a unique opportunity this weekend. I skiied blind (well, nearly blind). Hold on, let me back up a bit.

I am reading an oustanding book called "Take off Your Glasses and See." The guy who wrote it is an ophthalmologist who didn't buy the traditional medicine beliefs that say "your eyes are hte only organ that can't heal itself" and "vision just gets worse, you'll get used to it." He didn't buy that and started looking for a better way. In fact, he found it.

He also discovered that wearing corrective lenses (contacts or glasses) actually makes your vision worse. Sound crazy? You owe it to yourself to check out this book.

Anyhow, I decided to do a little experiment. So we went up to the mountains for a ski-weekend, and I decided to ski without contact lenses.

Oh, and I should probably mention that my vision tests at 20/160. In case you're not aware (I wasn't until I read this guy's book) that means that at 160 feet, I can see as well as somone with 20/20 vision can read at 20 feet. So my vision is 80x worse than someone wiht perfect vision.

It was snowing, and fortunately we brought our low-light goggles. As soon as I put them on, I knew I'd be OK. Could I read signage? No way, but I could see other skiiers, I coudl see trees and I could see where the lift lines started, so I figured what the hell.

It was my intent to put my glasses in the pocket of my ski jacket, just in case I chickened out and needed them, but I forgot to do this. So I was literally skiing blind.

Now here comes the amazing part....

I skiied better than I have ever skiied in my life.

Seriously, if you don't beleive me, just ask my husband. He's the speed demon and I'm the "cautious" skiier (well, formerly cautious skiier) and I kept telling him he was going too slow.

It was phenomenal. We got daring. In fact, we cut thorugh the woods, we jumped a couple of small jumps, we went "off-road" and we had an absolute blast.

And I didn't fall or spaz out once. Which you should know is a record for me.

So what happened? Surely there is a lesson here, I thought. Well, I am nearsighted, so when I wear my contacts, I tend to look only at what's right in front of me. When skiing, this is disastrous - it means I look down at my skis and what is right in front of me instaed of looking where I'm going...down the mountain. When I wear my contacts, I stop at every little ledge, I bypass every patch of ice and every pile of powder and I try to stay on the smoothest track possible. I panic. I freak. I am a green-run skiing spaz.

But without contacts, I am free to see only whta's necessary...trees, other skiiers, snowbumps--er, I mean snowboarders, and hazards. Without contacts, I don't see the tiny patch of ice (which isn't going to affect me anyways) or the pile of powder (who cares?). All I thought about was turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right and "this is fun!"

I went fast, fast, fast, faster than I'd ever gone before. It was so much fun. I've never before had this much fun skiing.

You'd better believe I'll be doing it again.

And as a result of going fast, my husband was able to have fun too (he usually hates having to go so slow to keep an eye on me) AND I was not sore hte next day at all. Of course, because I didn't do all that silly starting and stopping that I normally do.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not recommending that anyone who normally wears corrective lenses NOT wear them while performing a dangerous sport like skiing! But read the book adn see what you're missing...also, I had been without contacts for 3 days before I tried skiing sans lenses.

So what does this have to do with success? Everything!

When we are short-sighted about what we intend to accomplish, how easy it is to see the obstacles! Or perceived obstacles for that matter! When we are short-sighted, we lose sight of why we're here (to have fun, or whatever) and what our goal is (to get down the mountain safely) and instead we focus on stupid, meaningless things like "what did he mean by that remark," and "what if I can't afford to do that?" and "I don't think I can."

This is exactly how people get stuck in teh same job for 30 years, even though they don't like it and don't think they make a difference at all. This is how people get stuck in marriages that don't work, and how they stay in abusive relationships. They simply can't see beyond what is so, right now.

So your question of the day is:
What are you focusing on? Where are your sights set? Are you focused on "getting by" each day, or are you keeping your eyes on what you really want to accomplish? How can you shift your "vision" to get the whole picture instead of just what's in front of you?