Living In Two Time Zones

Let’s think about time zones. Not the artificial lines that separate Eastern Time from Central Time, but a different type of time zone. Let’s consider the time associated with the Past, Present and Future. In which of these time zones do you most focus?

The obvious choice is the Present... after all, we are living in the present, moment by moment. Yet, very few people really are “in the moment,” observing the wonder of an instant, the beauty in the world, the amazing things and situations around us, the people we interact with each day.

Instead, a great many people and organizations often live in the past... remembering their past experiences, the situations that got them to this moment... and the task of the present that’s right in front of them.

The tyranny of the urgent tends to dominate and a little voice keeps reminding us about the lessons from the past. Living in the past and the task-oriented present moment can be beneficial for some routine situations, but it certainly is not very inspired or aspirational. Maybe that’s why so many organizations and people are stuck in their current circumstance. Living in the past and present time zones can be self- limiting.

If you want to really change your future, maybe we should redirect our time zone focus. Let’s start investing time in the future time zone where we envision a new view of our organizations or ourselves. If we spend quality time here, we can imagine a different future... a new reality that gets us beyond the trappings of our current circumstance.

Next, let’s really get immersed into the present time zone and create a well-designed plan to pull the present to meet this new future reality. The Spiral Thinking embedded in the Spiral 2020 Toolkits can help us to invest our time in these two, exciting time zones while gaining the best experience and authenticity of our past.