Driving in the dark
Posted on January 11, 2012 by Margot Ayer, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
When you're trying to find your way in life, it feels like driving in the dark. You need a voice to keep you on track.
A few weeks ago, I set off to a party at a friend’s house. The house is about 40 minutes’ drive from Seattle and the route is very much like the way to Grandma’s house in the song – winding over the hills, through the slough, across the bridge and through the trees. It’s beautiful in the summer, but in deep winter, it’s dark, often rainy, and frequently foggy. Cars and trucks emerge from the darkness at speed with their brights full on or they sit on your tail and shine them into your rear view mirror. There are deep drainage ditches on the side of the road and I have vivid fantasies of blindly missing one of the bends, and driving off into one of the ditches – never to be heard from again. Without lights, it’s not always clear where to turn – or even to find your way back to the place where you missed the turn.
However, I have a clear vision of where I want to end up – in a warm, light house with friends, and fire, and food – and continue to make my way, one small patch of visibility at a time.
It struck me that this is very much what we do when we work towards a goal. The final destination is clear in our minds — the perfect job, the completed novel, the financial plan in place – but until we get there, we’re just driving in the dark, without a good view of anything more than a day or so ahead of us.
What is it that helps us not get lost?
When I drive a route I’ve driven many times before, I know where the turns are, I know where I have to be more vigilant, I know what is out there on either side of me – in the dark. Once, for example, I was driving back to town from this friend’s house, and had a couple of visitors from London in the car with me. I turned off the road we were on and headed out across the slough into what seemed to them to be complete darkness. I knew the bridge was out there but none of us could see it from the main road.
If you’re doing something you’ve done before, it’s the same thing. You know where the pitfalls are, and how to avoid or fix them. You know where you can slack off, and where you need to pay attention.
Then again, as one of my friends reminded me, you can always use your GPS.
There is nothing like the soothing voice of your GPS telling you when to expect a turn and when to make it, and how to get back on track when you’ve lost your way. It shows you where you are, and gives you an idea of how long it’s going to be before you get to your destination. When I’m going into unfamiliar neighborhoods on winter nights, my GPS device is my life saver.
It came to me that, as a project coach, I am that GPS voice for people who are making their way through unknown territory, in the dark and the fog and the rain, towards their goal of brightly-lit success. A coach keeps you aware of the bigger journey, reminds you of how far you’ve come and keeps you inspired and energized for where you’re going now. A coach reminds you that, although you feel as if you’re just moving a little bit at a time, you’re moving forward towards your goal.
