I don’t have a tendency for drama so believe me when I tell you that I feel extremely blessed to be writing this to you. I was in a car accident yesterday (20th February 2014) and I know I am lucky to be alive and unhurt. I wanted to share this with you because I thought it was important to share the lesson on the power of focus that I got at a deep level.
The Scene
I was driving on the M50, (which for those who may not know, is a four lane motorway on the outskirts of Dublin city) when a truck hit the back of my car on the driver’s side. I felt the car spin out of control and in a matter of seconds, I careered across the lanes and spun around so that I was facing on-coming traffic. Even as I type that, it sounds like something you might see in a movie. In the moment that I felt the car lose control, all I heard in my mind was “focus on the space, focus on the space” and in those next few vital seconds, I focused on steering the car into the spaces across the lanes, even as I spun. For anyone who knows the M50, it is a high speed motorway and for me to spin across the lanes without hitting any other car was actually miraculous. When I finally got out of my car, knees wobbling, heart thumping and lower lip quivering, I saw that I had stopped literally inches away from the wall in the centre of the motorway, and so avoided another impact. A lovely man called Declan, from the Meath branch of the Fire Services pulled up as an “ordinary angel” to help me within minutes and I felt it at a cellular level when he said to me “today just wasn’t your time”.
How Tony Robbins saved my life
So, how did I do it? How did I keep that focus in a critical time? Well, I can assure you I’ve been reflecting on that since it happened 🙂 But I have to thank Tony Robbins, the American motivator, life coach and author, for my life yesterday. Of course, it’s taking a while for me to make my point here in words, but you know the way your mind works much more quickly than it can type, so bear with me. In that moment of going out of control, I remembered in a flash, a piece of a book I had read years ago by Tony Robbins, where he was talking about how most people focus on what they don’t want in life rather than on what they do want. He then told a story about a car skidding on ice and that as your car skids, all you think about and see are the cars that you really want to avoid hitting. So what happens? You end up hitting them. So yesterday, my mind jumped into action to help me focus on space and manoeuvre my car into thespaces that opened up as I spun across the motorway. Pretty powerful eh?
Time Slowing Down
I know sports people talk about time slowing down when they are performing at a high level, in flow, or in the zone, so they can see the gaps or the opportunities that can open up in a game. Well, I certainly experienced that yesterday because it did feel like it happened in slow motion and all I could see was space and the opportunity for safety. Even today, in my visual memory of the event, all I can see is the space in the lanes, wide open for me. So, I must say thank you to my “performance” for showing up in one of my most critical times – in the gameof my life yesterday.
Turning lessons into actions
For me, it’s been a pretty strange January and February. I’ve had very powerful lessons in life and in business and I mentioned to someone in the past few weeks that I felt as if I was in a period of accelerated learning. Well, I think I can (excuse the pun) take my foot off the learning pedal now and focus my energy and attention truly in the places that I want to go. It’s time for turning the lessons into action. So how can all of this help you?
Check Your Focus
It seems to me that I could not have got a stronger lesson on the power offocusing my mind on where I want it to go. Yesterday I only focused on space and in doing that, it is all I saw and therefore I was able to move into it. Had Ifocused on trying to avoid the other cars or even the wall, then I think there would have been a totally different outcome and I’m not sure I’d be writing this to you today.
So, wherever you are, whatever has been going on in your year to date or even your day so far, stop, consciously allow time to slow down and check what it is you are focusing on. Are you putting your energy and attention on things that you actually don’t want, that don’t serve you and that are distracting you from what you really want to be doing? Then move into action on those things instead. Fill your space up with the stuff that is meaningful and high impact, for you and for others.
Spot the Openings and Enter that Space
Identify the opening to the future, to the potential, to the highest outcome in your organisation, your Self, society and then move into it, with committed action andfocus.
The Theme of Your Year
It didn’t escape my attention and I laughed when I realised this, this morning – that I had themed this year “Focus and Hope”. You may remember that from my first post of the New Year on Your Best Year Yet http://nadinemccarthy.ie/2014-best-year-yet-part-two/ I don’t think I could have engineered a better way to see that I am on track with living in accordance with that Theme 🙂
So, what was your Theme and will you create some space over the coming days to check your own progress on this? How authentically are you living your Theme? Is it showing up more and more in your awareness so that it can influence your actions, consciously and even unconsciously?
And, if you become aware that your Theme has somehow slipped off your radar since you developed it for 2014, re-commit to it now whilst also being open to noticing how it might have already infused into your life since January.
Enjoy life and all the little things
I have been flooded with gratitude and a renewed love for life since yesterday. I intend to immerse myself in all the little moments over this coming weekend and soak up every moment I can. I wish this for you too.
So …
It’s time to focus on exactly what I want and where I want to go.
Watch this space. I intend to fill it in a much more focused and authentic way.
Be the Best You Can Be
Nadine