Internal Distractions

Distraction – something that draws your attention away…

My 4 year old son enjoys watching The Simpsons. The only problem; it is usually on when he is eating his dinner. He would sit there with a spoonful of food between the plate and his mouth and his eyes would be fixated on the television. So, I’d tell him “you better eat otherwise I will turn the TV off”. To which he replied, “But if I eat, I will miss out, so just turn it off and I will watch it when I finish eating”. The Simpsons was a distraction and my son decided to eliminate it while he completed his goal – eating his dinner. Distractions are everywhere. It could be a workmate trying to have a conversation with you while you are trying to finish that report. A handsome guy or a beautiful girl walking down the street while you’re driving or the telephone, ringing, while you are in a meeting. However, those distractions can easily be ignored or turned off. You can tell your workmate that you will catch up with them at another time. You can ignore the guy or girl and keep driving safely and you can put your phone on silent. But there are other distractions that are not so easily turned off. These distractions occur internally.

“You’re not smart enough”. “You’re too weak”. “If only your brain wasn’t as hard as a rock”. “Pity you’re not prettier”. “Don’t apply for that job; you should stick to something more at your level”. “You’ve tried and you’ve failed, let’s not go through that again”. We all have that voice that tells us not to do something because we are not good enough or because we have tried and failed. It could be the voice of our parents, friends, teachers or it could even be our own that distracts us from achieving our goal. These voices are not easy to ignore or turn off. Some people live their whole lives listening to these voices. They start believing in them and stop fulfilling their dreams, shelve their ambitions and surrender to the fact that they were never good enough and should be satisfied with their current situation. But some refuse to give in to this distraction. They refuse to listen to these voices and decide to keep striving for success to prove the voices wrong. In many cases, they manage to turn the voices from distraction to the motivation that encourages them to fulfil their dreams.

There are people who are not prepared to put in the hard work required to achieve their goals. They believe that they should not waste time with starting at the bottom and working their way up. They feel over-qualified for that and think they deserve to start at the top. These people are so distracted by their arrogance that they miss out on opportunities to work on reaching their goal. There was a guy I knew who was looking for a job after he completed his degree at university. He kept complaining that there was nothing out there. He had applied for so many roles but was unsuccessful. They told him that he was under-qualified which baffled him since he had a bachelor’s degree and they told him that he was an unfavourable candidate due to his lack of experience. Instead, they offered him some entry-level positions which he declined. We asked him what kind of jobs he had applied for and he showed us the advertisements. The positions he had applied for had titles like “Managing Director” or “Senior Manager”. We explained to him that although his qualification may be enough, he did not have the experience to back up his application. He then asked me and my husband, how we got our jobs. We told him that we started at the entry-level and even to get that we were asked whether we had worked previously in any type of employment. My husband worked at a petrol station and I had worked delivering newspaper, served at McDonald’s and Nando’s and other administration roles. We then got promotions along the way but always worked hard to prove our abilities. He then told us there was no way he would do that. He’s not going to do those types of jobs now that he had a degree. He studied too hard to be just an entry-level employee. However, after so many rejections and no job offers besides those for an entry-level position, he decided to put aside his arrogance and accepted that he had to start somewhere.

To me, there is nothing worse than being in competition with others when it comes to life in general. I don’t understand why people compare their jobs, their wealth, their car, their TVs or their clothing to others. People get so distracted by what others have that they waste so much time, energy and resources, or borrowed resources, to keep up. They don’t realise that it will never end. There will always be someone with something better than yours. It is much better to feel content and satisfied that you have achieved your goal than trying to keep up with someone else’s. So don’t be distracted by what others have. Be in competition with yourself. Focus on what you need and what you want.

Internal distractions cannot be controlled physically. You cannot turn your back on them, turn them off with a remote control or close the door on them. They play on your emotions and can be very successful in drawing your attention away from what you wish to achieve. However, in some cases, they can motivate you to keep going. So take advantage of them and use them to achieve your goal.