Saturday, May 24, 2014

Bulls-Eye


Today I was playing dart game at my house and something brought a great Eureka moment for me. Wanted to share. 

I was trying to put all three darts in the inner circle but even after numerous attempts one or more were astray. Then during one attempt I somehow removed my spectacles (I have a minor myopia, so basically was able to see board but not very clear). Now again I tried hitting and surprisingly consistently all 3 darts were hitting inner circle and some were in fact going and hitting bull's-eye. This got me thinking and then came the Eureka moment.

Because of my blurred vision I had to concentrate more and was trying very hard to just see the bull's-eye and trying to aim there only (since that was the only mark clearly visible, no other numbers were visible). I couldn`t even see where other darts were hitting, my eye was only concentrating on bull's-eye and what happened as a result was everything - my hand movement, grip, stance, trajectory - were automatically getting aligned.

Even after the first shot, which was little off, I did not see where it hit but kept my gaze on bull's-eye and then second shot automatically came near, I continued my gaze and third shot hit the bull's-eye.

The revelation I felt was almost like an enlightenment. When I was concentrating my vision and mind on the bull's-eye, everything else seemed to obey an order and automatically got aligned to achieve a common goal. It's not even that I practiced and eventually it happened, the results were sudden. Performance increased instantly.

Earlier with my spectacles on, since I had more vision I could see all sectors/numbers and was thinking that I can hit here or there etc. Later with no spectacles with all concentration and vision on bull's-eye, there was no option and my mind and eyes were only concentrating on the single target. Magic happened.

I guess the parallel in startups also holds true. If one is extremely laser sharp focused on a goal, everything will align towards that. The only condition being the focus should be unwavering. Many a times we let our focus waver on multiple things but I guess it should be the mission of an entrepreneur to find that ONE thing to focus on. There will be lots of misses, but one should not break the focus and just keep on gazing the bull's-eye…..everything will automatically align very fast and the next attempt will be near the mark and eventually we will hit a bull's-eye.

So in short all one needs is 1) Identification of ONE Goal and 2) Meditation like focus on that Goal…..don't bother about anything else…..if the focus is consistent and attempts are continuous the alignment will happen. Almost magically.