Stay in your lane – it’s where the real action is.
It’s where the real thinking is and where the real intentions are. Straying out of your lane into another ensures the risk of colliding with those who have their eyes fixed on their own road ahead. It’s a lot less enjoyable journey.
Staying in your lane is where you are in charge of your speed, your direction, your signals and your overall journey. It’s what you can control. There is plenty in your lane to focus on.
It’s easy to get very caught up in other people’s lanes. We peer over the white line and comment on how they are driving their life. We make up stories about how they are driving with the intent to put us off and run us off the road! Even if we wanted to get into their lane and show them how to drive, we can’t. There is no room for two!
But enough of the driving metaphors. Staying in your lane is a phrase that just says ‘mind your own business’ a defensive rebuke handed to us when we have overstepped the mark into another lane that isn’t ours. But minding our own business is not only staying out of someone else’s lane, it’s focussing on our world and controlling what we can and not trying to control what we can’t.
It’s about our circle of influence.
Our circle of influence.
Knowing what we can control by living within our circle of influence brings a feeling of relief. When we pull back and drop thoughts about controlling others, giving unwanted advice, opinions, judgements, all the should haves and all the drama, we feel so much lighter. The reward for staying in our circle of influence is clarity. Clarity about what we can do and what we can influence. We can see the clear road ahead and know that we only have our own thoughts, feelings and actions to take care of. This is our purpose. Managing ourselves. Yes, we can be entrusted to manage others, but we can never control what they think unless we have invested in some serious car (sorry!) brainwashing. We can guide and request of others. We can state assertively what we want in the understanding that others have the same permission. They too have their own circle of influence. We can meet people where they are, at the edge of their circle and we at ours. It’s where the win-wins happen.
Traffic reporting
We can choose to report on the traffic in the other lanes if we want to: he said, she said, they did, or I can’t believe they did etc etc. A constant stream of commentary about how others are managing their traffic in their lanes!
Traffic reporting is good when it is alerting others to real dangers and circumstances, not imagined ones. A wonderful quote that I came across recently was that giving advice was akin to our ego masquerading as God! We are not that but there is something in us that cant help giving advice, usually where it is not wanted. At the heart of it, when we are focused on others and what they are up to in their lane, we are not focusing on ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I have plenty of my own stuff to work on. On some days, my work is just getting back in my lane and concentrating on the road ahead. When I have found myself straying across the white lines it usually doesn’t end well. What about you?
If you need help mastering how to stay in your own lane then do get in touch. I help people to love the lane they are in!
