Photo by Sammy Swae on Unsplash
The advice…
Sometimes, little things can feel like big things to us. More often than not, this is because we give them far more weight and space (in our heads) than they deserve. In other words: what you focus on expands.
Where it’s coming from…
I recently attended a workshop where entrepreneurs who had made it on their own shared their experiences. One of them was Pia Zammit – an actor, activist and communication coach.
As she spoke about believing in yourself and putting yourself out there, she shared one of her favourite quotes: what you focus on expands.
She was talking about how we can sometimes be overly critical of ourselves, focusing on little insecurities and dwelling on our mistakes. These things can feel so big to us when, in reality, they aren't. Often, it's simply because we're standing too close to them.
Have you ever noticed how the same thing can happen to a friend, yet when you look at it from the outside, you can easily help them see how small it really is?
I loved this thought because it rings so true. How many times have I obsessed over a mistake or magnified what I don't know, rather than recognising what I do know? By giving those things my attention, I've allowed them to take up more space and feel much bigger than they actually are.
Pia's little phrase gives us a way to anchor this perspective – so we can recognise it and call it out for what it is.
And, of course, the more I think about it, the more I realise that these words have a flip side, too: when we focus our minds on something positive, that can grow as well.
So, I like to think of it as two sides of the same coin. One side reminds us not to give our insecurities and mistakes more attention than they deserve. The other reminds us to put our energy into the good stuff – our strengths, our abilities and the things we want to nurture.
Let's focus on those strengths and let them expand.