[A] plane is off course at least 90 percent of the time. Weather conditions, turbulence, and other factors cause it to get off track. However, feedback is given to the pilot constantly, who then makes course corrections and keeps coming back to the exact flight plan, bringing the plane back on course. … Leaving on time, arriving on time, but off course 90 percent of the time.
STEPHEN R. COVEY, HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT
Feel familiar? Getting off track? Finding yourself heading in a different direction and wondering how you got there?
Sometimes we’re able to point to the circumstances that prompted us to make the choice. We lose our job. We need to care for an aging parent. A colleague presents an offer that’s hard to refuse. Our child develops a serious illness.
Other times we wake up to the reality that we’re off course. We didn’t see it coming. We didn’t recognize we were getting off course.
When this happens, I’m tempted to criticize myself for the change. “What was I thinking? How could I do that? Why did I do that?”
The world bashes me already. I don’t need to join that mob.
So I have to choose to keep walking (or, in the case of the quotation, keep flying). I have to make a course correction. And there’s always the possibility that the change is the course correction.
How do I know the difference? Clumsily, often in confusion. I pull out the set of lenses I’ve collected over the years and look through them to see whether I’m need to make a course correction or the change is the correction.
- Seek the wisdom of two or three people who know me well, who’s insight I trust, and who will be honest with me.
- Make time for quiet and solitude that allows me to listen to the quiet whispers in my heart, my head, and my gut.
- Get outside, by myself.
- Stop and breathe.
- Pray. Ask others’ to pray.
- Read scripture or other books that, in the past, nudged me to clarity.
- Look back to remember what I’ve learned from similar situations and review the arc of my life.
- And, always, do the next right thing and live into this day.
