In principle, a key to achieving big things is to not be distracted by small things. It is good to be passionate about one or two things and it is okay to be indifferent to everything else.
Indifference is simply the absence of feeling for or against. It is to say, “I’m simply not thinking about that right now. I have no judgment about it, good or bad.” Having to make judgments about many things waters down our focus and lessens our ability to make good decisions about the most important things.
Practical Tip: Decide what is really important and focus on that. Give yourself and your group freedom to be indifferent toward things currently out of focus. Better to make no judgment than wrong judgment. Better to make good decisions about a few things than bad decisions about a lot of things. It’s okay to say, “I don’t know what I think about that.”
– Craig Freshley
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Thanks for your recent comments, Larry and Joyce!
Much appreciated.
RE: Indifference:
Hi Craig,
Another feeling I sometimes have is not indifference but rather “no strong feelings.” I have thought about a proposal but think all of the options have advantages and disadvantages, with none of the options a distinctly better choice. Not having bandwidth is OK sometimes, but so is “I can go with the flow” and I defer to those who do have strong feelings (or stronger than mine).
Distractions abound! This tip can be utilized daily and even more frequently. Thanks for the reminder, Craig.
Practicing Creative Indifference helps you let go of your focus on your own self – on getting your “needs” met; your resentments or disappointments about how your partner behaves; your own reactivity to what he or she is reactive to. All of those are products of your “ego-self,” which is distorted and narrow, by definition.
Great tip, Craig! In this world of multi-tasking, it is important to keep our focus on the important things in life!
This tip came today, moments after a colleague walked into my office while I was in the middle of trying to finish a complicated report (numbers). She noticed I did not have my 2009 calendar up yet, and I started to get up to change it…..then realized I can change the calendar any time, particularly since the calendars that matter are electronic and keep themselves up to date and my wall calendar is decoration. I allowed myself to be “indifferent” to it, and closed the loop on my task.
This one appeals to me because the Belfast CoHo Group is moving forward and will be making alot decisions in the next few months. Any group feels the pressure to make decisions but need to gather all the facts before making a final decision.
I was reminded of my years as VP of Administration at Bankers National Life Insurance Co., where I coordinated project/product development. We were so productive when we stayed focused and set priorities based on the most important tasks.
Often very good ideas had to be sacrificed in order to retain that focus.
Sometimes we’d be distracted by something “urgent” when one of these good ideas seemed to need immediate attention.
When I noticed that energy was dropping from the primary goal and determined that something good was taking energy away from our focus on the most important tasks, I am sure I seemed ruthless, uncaring, and too focused on the goal.
But, this approach helped keep our development team on task, and accomplish our objectives.