When I was growing up I used to do lot of swimming. It’s the only sport I’m really any good at. I don’t like running. Not at all! These days I can still hold my own in the pool even if my butterfly is limited to two lengths before I’m complete custard. And it’s generally the fast lane that I head for when I go to my local pool, along with a lot of other swimmers who clearly think, believe and know beyond a doubt that they are also fast.
The problem is, that having decided they’re fast, they absolutely need to be in that fast lane. They have read the sign and that’s that. There’s not much that will move them from the fast lane. Even, it seems the fact that it is packed to the point where its nearly impossible to swim. They seem to be having these conversations with themselves:
“It says fast, so I must stay here.”
“Hmmm, but the medium lane is far less full.”
“But it tells me this is where the fast people need to be. I need to be with the fast people. Here is where I’m staying”.
I am however hot foot over to the medium lane, which I have checked out and can see is far less full. The “fast lane”label is actually rather defunct as no one is able to swim properly, it’s too packed. But somehow the congestion in the fast lane seems to be created by that word; “fast”. No one else seems to have cottoned on, they are so keen to be fast……..
And for me, this behaviour is all about awareness. Or lack of it. Which amounts basically to carrying on with what you are doing without really thinking about it. Determined to fulfil a goal, without monitoring your progress.
It’s very much like carrying on regaling someone with a tale without realising that they are bored to tears. We all do this sometimes and if you spend any length of time observing people having conversations then you will see what I mean, particularly in groups when there are a lot of different people taking part. It is usually just a few people that find it harder to take on board their surroundings, but in doing so they do show this kind of “plough on anyway” behaviour – I’ve started so I’ll finish as Magnus Magnusson used to say.
This often manifests itself as not listening. But its not just about listening. It’s about paying attention to all sorts of different things going on; it’s the body language, the frequency of exchanges, the types of conversations being had and the level of language used. It’s about hearing responses and connecting them to what you are talking about. Particularly in a group there is always a danger that we just do what everyone else does, what we think is expected of us without actually checking first.
And if you are determined to be in the fast lane regardless you are quite possibly focusing on the wrong thing. You are not seeing that there are other ways to get what you want, to speak to people, to have a conversation. There are other ways to ask questions, tell a story or discuss a problem. If you want to stay fixed to your goal without thinking about the other people around, then you might actually end up achieving it slower. You need to have the buy in of other people into your conversation or it’s not really a conversation, but one way traffic.
So next time you have that “fast lane feeling”, maybe stop and collect yourself a bit. We are all guilty of this trait on one level or another and we don’t always employ our best awareness tactics. I know, really that telling my daughter to put her shoes on in the morning 5 times in a row isn’t effective. Yet I still do it. Maybe if I gave her the chance to finish what she is doing first, we might get better results but somehow my fast lane feeling can sometimes become the default setting when under pressure, when in a rush.
We all sometimes miss the important signs, the subtle things, the less obvious. We are constantly distracted and diverted by our busy lives and our need to get things done. If we take a look at other approaches available to us once in a while and think about the alternatives to steaming on regardless there may be some surprising results.