Posted by Justen Collins on January 11, 2013
Truth be told, the only thing I know about flying an airplane is how to find cheap tickets on the internet. I did have a chance to practice takeoffs and landings in the official UPS pilot training airplane simulator once, though, and I had the golden (plastic) wings pinned on my lapel to prove it. The cockpit contains a dizzying array of buttons and levers and switches, and most of them and their functions were completely lost on me. I did, however, learn the importance of maintaining a sense of the horizon. Once you get up in the clouds and lose sight of the ground, it is easy to also lose your bearings with no point of reference and start tilting the plane to one side or the other. Even in the simulator, I soon learned the value of the “attitude indicator” – the little gauge that provides an artificial horizon for the pilot when visibility is gone – in keeping the plane level and on the correct course.
This week’s Cubicle Survival Guide tip is to keep your eyes on the horizon in your daily working life also. Without something ahead of you – meaning in your future, in this case – that you can strategically place and keep as your point of reference and focus in times of stress, your life and job can start to drift off course just like a plane with a careless pilot.
If you don’t have something that you can be mentally working your way toward, the routine and monotony of the modern office can quickly become overwhelming.
Your “work horizon” – as we will call it today for the sake of clarity and convenience – can be just about anything that motivates you and helps you see through haze of endless meetings and teleconferences that so often clutter our days. For me, the dot on the horizon that I am working toward is usually an occasion of some sort. It could be an upcoming trip, a concert, a party, or any other event that promises to provide me with a welcome distraction from my work duties. If I am sitting at my desk staring at an Outlook calendar with nothing but weeks of meetings filling it, then I quickly begin to lose interest and allow my attitude to head south in a hurry. That is why I try to have at least one special occasion each month that I can put on my calendar and use as my focal point on those more trying days in the office.
As I said, your “work horizon” can be as simple or as structured as you want it to be. Where I might use a weekend trip with my kids as an event to channel my energy towards, you could use something like getting your MBA or losing a desired amount of weight. The only real criteria that your work horizon needs to meet is that it has to be something that motivates you and something that you can put some energy toward throughout the work week. For instance, whenever I am using an upcoming trip as my work horizon and I have a day at work that has me stressed out, I will take a few minutes and go online and research restaurants or attractions in the area I am planning to visit. Just a few minutes of focus on my work horizon – and the joy it promises to bring – will allow me to wade back into the work mess with a better mindset.
You might find yourself in a really bad job environment and have to use the emergency work horizon of focusing on finding a new job. Believe me, I have used this one before myself, and it works. Keep a positive outlook on the new job that is waiting out ahead of you, and focus your energy in your free time into uncovering and landing it.
The work horizon of personal improvement is another great one. Whether you are trying to lose weight, further your education, or get a promotion, those are all goals that you can focus in on for motivation and positive distraction in times of stress. When you find yourself ready to strangle a coworker with the cord from your keyboard, you can take a little break and go for a walk to burn calories, or take a few minutes to knock out some school reading, or use the time to polish up your resume and document all the contributions you have recently made to your team.
No matter what work horizon you choose, keeping it in front of you and allowing it to pull you through the malaise of a boring Wednesday or the frenzy of a frantic Friday afternoon meltdown is the key. Lose sight of your horizon and suddenly every day starts to look terrifyingly similar to the one that came before it and the one coming after it. In short order, you will be sifting through the wreckage of your career trying to locate the little black box that might tell you what went wrong.
Rest assured that I am practicing what I preach here. I currently have my sights set on a weekend getaway with my family to EnterTRAINment Junction in Cincinnati, Ohio in a few weeks. The look I anticipate seeing in my four-year-old son’s eyes when he visits the world’s largest indoor toy train display is all the motivation I need to plow through any boring spreadsheet or database.
Who knows what next month’s work horizon will be for me, but I will admit that the ultimate work horizon – retirement! – is one that I can’t wait to catch a glimpse of one day. I would love to hear what your current work horizon is, so send me an email or leave your comments on the forum or on Facebook. See you next week with another installment of The Cubicle Survival Guide.
