What We See Isn’t Always What Is Real

What We See Isn’t Always What Is Real

In July, I moved to a new area of San Diego. While I was getting acquainted with my new neighborhood, I was delighted to see a nail spa where I could get pedicures just around the corner from my house. I was even more delighted that it was called  JOY Nails & Spa. It was like I was destined to live so close to it.

A few weeks after I moved there, I decided it was time for that pedicure, so I googled to get the number for Joy Nails. It found one 26 miles away. I was totally confused! Then I did a local search for nails and there was a spa super close to me, but it wasn’t named Joy. “Oh well,” I thought. “Maybe they changed their name.”

Fast forward a bit, and I had an awareness.

Below is a picture of the nail spa around the corner from my house.

As you can see, it was never Joy Nails & Spa. I saw what I wanted to see, and boy, did I get committed to that. Once I saw Joy, that’s all my brain registered, even though I drove by it multiple times per day.

Where else in our lives are we seeing what we want to see, or perhaps even more often, what we don’t want to see, and it’s not even real? Where have we gotten hurt by someone so that now we spend every interaction waiting to get hurt even though that person thought it was resolved? Where have we grown and expanded but we are not allowing others to do the same – we only see them as we’ve always seen them? Which of our team members is stepping up, and instead of praising them, we wonder what they are up to? Maybe they have their eye on our job.

It’s our stories of the past, or our anxieties about the future, that keep us locked into one way of looking at something. Those stories may be distorting what is right before your eyes. Step back. Take a fresh look at everything – your relationships, your career and your choices. It’s time to realize that the joy you’ve been searching for is already there.

Are you ready to find the JOY in every moment, no matter what that moment brings? It’s possible. Give us a weekend and we will give you a lifetime of purpose, joy, success and love. Send me an email at barb@high5leadership.com to set up a free coaching session to see how to tap into your true joy.