The Power of observation - How learning From What You See Can convert Your Life

In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. It's one of those sayings that seems universally acknowledged for its truth, and equally universally ignored. After all, haven't most population got two good eyes? The thing is, the saying isn't about how many eyes you've got, or how good they are, it's about how well you use them.

Power Tools

One of the strangest things about being a human is the way we have to unconsciously ignore most of the data available to our senses

We have to do this to continue functioning - otherwise we'd probably end up like those old fashioned sci-fi robots - all flashing lights, warning buzzers and smoke pouring from our ears as we shout overload - overload! Then of course, there'd be a sparky flash and we'd blow a fuse.

So the potential to be blind to most of what we see and deaf to most of what we hear is quite useful. It helps us get by in life.

Unfortunately there's a flip side, because we also miss a lot of very important stuff - and especially when it comes to our increasingly complex work environments, where office politics and competing personalities can leave us baffled and floundering.

Whatever our role we tend to be so busy just getting along that we rarely make the time to sit up and precisely take notice. So in this single land of the blind we may well be with the blind. Those that have taken the time to properly look about them have a mountainous advantage over us.

Habit of not looking

It's an advantage that has been handed to them because while they have the habit of looking, we are in the habit of not looking, of not hearing - of not noticing. Manufacture the decision to change that habit can offer weighty paybacks. Many of my coaching clients have cited their new found notice habit as their key to unlocking their personal power and their potential to change things for the better.

Here are just a few of the benefits of enhanced notice skills:

Better understanding of friends and rivals, bosses and staffImproved decision Manufacture skillsRecognising and emulating 'success behaviour' (whatever your own definition of 'success' is)Learning the best ways to help peopleLearning the best ways to sway peopleFinding new ways to solve persistent problemsSeeing opportunities and problems before they happen

With benefits like these it's no surprise that trust and self trust heighten too.

But isn't all this talk of notice a bit creepy, you may ask. If what we mean by notice is spying, I'd agree. However, every day notice skills need not be even remotely underhand. That's because the astonishing and mighty things you are likely to notice are already simply in view.

As Jonathan Swift said: foresight is the art of seeing things indiscernible to others. And why does so much of what's in front of us seem invisible? Well, possibly because population only see what they are ready to see (Ralph Waldo Emerson), and because: what we see depends in general on what we look for (John Lubbock).

Getting the notice Habit.

Building the notice habit is surprisingly easy. It takes exiguous more than selecting a focus for your budding notice skills, and the willingness to practice. I'd recommend focusing on one kind of event or one man at first. And it's also useful if there is some kind of challenge you wish to address. This might something like how to be more sufficient in meetings by observing behaviours and reactions, or possibly how to recap good with an awkward member of staff. It can also be very sufficient for studying to handle man who intimidates you.

Once you get into the swing of being more observant you'll probably find an animated by-product - it's precisely great fun. In fact you can enjoy it so much that your notice habit can seem more like a hobby.

Use a Journal

If you want to get the best out of your enhanced foresight I'd recommend one tool above all others - a journal. Journaling is a astonishing studying tool. It consolidates the things you've learned during the day and often leads to astonishing insights that you would never have had otherwise. How do you journal? simply make yourself some quiet time and write about the new things you've seen, and what that means to you.

So - are you precisely happy to keep the blinkers on - or would you prefer to try a exiguous experiment with your potential to precisely see what's going on nearby you? Start today. You'll be surprised.

The Power of observation - How learning From What You See Can convert Your Life