Zooming out to find perspective
Something I’ve been discussing a lot with clients in the last few weeks is how to feel like you’re making progress when it seems as though the whole world has ground to a halt. For lots of us, the plans or goals we set for ourselves back in January might not feel possible anymore, or perhaps they’re still possible, but you can’t reach them within the same time frame you might have hoped.
And that can feel disheartening. It can feel like all the momentum you’ve been working so hard to build is disappearing before your eyes. It can feel like it’s not worth the effort to keep on trying, at least not at the moment.
But trust me - it absolutely is worth the effort. Your dreams and hopes haven’t abandoned you - we’ve just reached an obstacle (albeit a fairly sizeable one), that we have to manoeuvre around. One day this will all be over, and you’ll be glad that you kept working towards those plans and goals that are important to you.
So how do you do that? How do you find the motivation when everyday feels a bit like groundhog day? Well, you zoom out. If you feel like you’re not making progress, change the time frame. Don’t compare yourself to the you of last week or last month, compare yourself to the you of a year ago or 5 years ago. Allow yourself to see how much progress you’ve already made, how far you’ve already come. Then use that as your motivation to keep on going.
And then, try zooming out in the other direction. Think not about next week or next month, but about what you want your life to look like in a year or two. What do you want to have changed? How do you want to feel? How do you want to be spending your days? Once you’ve built that vision for the future, ask yourself each and every day “what can I do today to get me closer to that goal?”.
Because this time? It still counts. And with a bit of perspective we can see that. Zooming out helps us to get that perspective. It reminds us that life wasn’t always like this, and that our present situation won’t be our reality forever. It reminds us that one day, this period of time will be just another bunch of memories that we look back on.
So, be kind to yourself right now. Give yourself the gift of perspective. Celebrate how far you’ve already come, and feel excited for what lies ahead of you. Accept that progress might not feel as fast or as linear as it has done in the past, but that it’s still progress. Every action you take, every seed you plant right now - it counts. And one day, a future version of you will thank you - for showing up, for zooming out, for making progress.
You’ve got this.
