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Having a balanced life requires that you set goals for yourself!

Do you want to have a balanced life?

How important is it for a blind man (or woman) to set goals for himself or herself? Keep reading to find out.

Do you find it stressful to be facing a challenge or a difficult task without any support or help?

You don't know who to ask for help. There are no available resources that can assist you. You are totally on your own.

Most of you would consider such a circumstance pretty stressful. Supportive people and helpful resources assist you in meeting challenges and completing tasks.

What if you were unable to see those supportive people and helpful resources? What if you were blind to them?

When you are blind to support and resources, you have a hard time living a balanced life. You find yourself facing situations that are pushing your life out of balance but without the needed support and resources. It seems as if you can't change.

You are blind to opportunities.

Have you ever decided to buy a specific car because you didn't think there were many of that particular make and model out there?

You wanted to get something that was different from what everybody else had. You also wanted to purchase something that you really liked.

So you put a great deal of thought into it. You picked up a couple of those magazines that feature cars for sell and studied them thoroughly from cover to cover. You perused the Sunday newspaper's car ads. You searched AutoTrader.com.

Finally, you made your decision. You picked a car that you liked the looks of, had the space and seating capacity to meet your needs, and was not common; that is, there were not a lot of them on the road.

But then, once you made your decision, you began to see that make and model all over the place. It was as if that car was manufactured, distributed, sold, and placed on the roads in record numbers overnight.

What happened?

What you experienced is a phenomenon called inattentional blindness.

Such inattentional blindness keeps you from being aware of the support and resources needed to effectively cope with stressful circumstances. Without support and resources you will find it very difficult to design and live a balanced life.

Here is an interesting video that will allow you to experience inattentional blindness. If you are like me, you will be very surprised at what you can't see.

Have you watched the video? If so you now know what to look for. Now watch this one to find out if you are still blind.

Inattentional blindness protects you from overwhelm.

Your brain is wired in such a way that you can't experience all the sights, sounds, smells, and simulations that surround you. If you saw, heard, felt, tasted and smelled everything you could not get anything done. 

There would be so much going on inside your brain that you would be totally overwhelmed. You would be unable to pay attention to what is important.

So your brain only lets through what is relevant or important to you and your goals.

Before you decided to buy that car, all of that car's siblings populating the highways and byways were irrelevant; thus, they were filtered out. Once you decided to get that car, the masses of identical vehicles became relevant; therefore, you began to notice them.

What does inattentional blindness have to do with designing and living a balanced life?

If you are like me and most of my clients, you are fully aware of changes that you can make to reduce your stress, making your life more balanced and satisfying. However, you are not sure about how to make the changes.

There are numerous sources of information, support and assistance all around you that can help; however, inattentional blindness keeps you from noticing them.

As far as your brain is concerned, it is all irrelevant background noise. So it is filtered out and you never even notice it.

Your brain is not working with you to help you make those specific changes. Rather your brain is working against you. Your brain is keeping you from living a balanced life.

How can you change this?

The answer is by setting a goal.

Goals restore your vision so that you can see how to live a balanced life.

When you set a goal all the information relevant to achieving that goal becomes important and your brain begins to let it through.

When you set the goal to buy the car, you began to notice all of the other cars like that one. They were there all along but you did not notice them because they were not relevant to your goals.

When you set the goal, they became relevant and you noticed them.

Likewise, you don't notice the support and resources that can help you make a specific change because they are irrelevant to your goals. Once you set a new goal to make the desired change, all of that support and those resources become relevant and you notice them.

Once I had a retired client that was having a hard time motivating herself to get out of bed at a reasonable time.

She was literally sleeping her life away and was not very happy with her situation.

I asked her what she had in her life worth getting out of bed for. After a long pause, she said, "Nothing." She was not motivated to get out of bed because there was nothing worth getting up for.

She went on to explain that nothing much interested her. She was experiencing the adult version of, "Mom, I'm bored. There's nothing to do."

Her life was seriously out of balance.

Using a goal setting formula that I teach my clients, she decided to find an enjoyable activity to be involved in that would interest her and would give her life a sense of meaning.

Within just a week or two, she discovered a photography group at a nearby church. Remembering that photography was an activity that she enjoyed early in her adult life, she began attending the group.

She also enrolled in a photography class at a local college.

As her knowledge and skill developed, she began to lead the group at the church.

The photography group at the church and the photography class at the college had been there for years but she was not aware of them. She had inattentional blindness for any information about them.

Once she set a goal to find an interesting and meaningful activity, the blindness was gone and she noticed the opportunities to engage in a hobby that added balance, meaning, and joy to her life.

What goal do you need to set to help you live a less stressful and more balanced life?

Set the goal and you will very likely notice resources that can help you achieve the goal. They are there; you just can't see them yet.

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