Tunnel Visioning through Life

Photograph by Alamy

As we navigate life, it is easy to fall into the trap of tunnel vision, where our focus becomes narrow and fixated on a single aspect, goal, or perspective. While intense focus can be beneficial in certain situations, it becomes problematic when it blinds us to the richness and diversity of life's experiences.

I have recently had a client who came to me because she was starting to show signs of depression and burnout related with work. She was so immersed in her “reality” of challenging work that in a matter of weeks she started to get home and cry-it-out. She shut herself off from her friends and family because of extreme tiredness but wasn’t able to sleep properly at night because of a racing mind and panicked heart.

The Circle of Life

After just one session where we discussed the importance of potentiating her full Circle of Life to bring back into balance her career and, in which we defined together a plan and exercises for her to strengthen the other areas of her life, her energy and motivation completely shifted!

Her tunnel vision focused solely on work was totally throwing her off balance, contaminating all the other areas of her life and she wasn’t finding a way to get out of that destructive loop on her own.

I realized this is the point that most of my clients are when they come to me. They are overly focused in the area of their life that is causing them pain and not knowing how to get out of that loop. Instead of choosing to get out of that negative cycle and using efficient tools and strategies to get better, they often resort to one of two things: numbing to deal with their feelings of frustration and insatisfaction or they will simply burn themselves out by staying stuck in their negative mental patterns and anxiety.

Getting out of these loops requires awareness, motivation for all the effort you WILL have to put in and energy, which many times is not there to start with! This is why the smartest choice at this point is to get someone to help you. Someone who will easily have that new perspective, who will remind you of what is good for you but you have been neglecting and who will help you define which activities you can do to flip your life back into balance.

The Circle of Life is a simple yet powerful tool that we use in life coaching to help you assess your life fulfillment. It efficiently gives you perspective on what it is that you might have been neglecting in your life because of being overly focused on one area. The key to happiness is to understand that these areas do not work on their own. They are deeply interconnected and can influence each other for the good and the bad. Using this strategic insight will help you define what else you can do to improve your situation when all you feel is stuck.