In an active pursuit of happiness and success, people are willing to take as many different roads as they find. While there is nothing wrong with trial and error system, some get lost in trying, without even having an opportunity to make a single error. They get distracted by new ideas time and again and in such short intervals that they never reach the stage of proper commitment to any of them. These seemingly unstoppable, eager individuals end up wanting too much right now without investing enough time, energy and attention to a single idea that needs to blossom. If you recognize yourself in this, you are in the right place.
Shiny Ball Syndrome
The name of this phenomenon is shiny ball syndrome, and it describes a habit of an individual to switch focus every time a “shiny ball” of potential catches their eye. When their current passion starts to fade, they quickly turn to something new. Sadly, that means that every ounce of energy and time invested in the previous idea goes to waste. The individual often believes that they changed their goals because something is new, and has to be undoubtedly better, while that is usually an illusion. What the appearance of a new idea implies is that there was never enough genuine commitment to the initial one.
Is Change the Only Constant?
When it comes to your goals, it shouldn’t be.
Continually changing your goals and directions can be quite addictive, due to the exciting nature of new ideas. They lull you in this idea of feeling falsely inspired, motivated and goal-driven. At the same time, that compelling nature prevents you from realizing you are merely running in circles and wasting valuable time.
To stay on course towards the goal you genuinely want to reach, what you should do is build strong walls of commitment along with your path. The closer the walls, the less time and effort will you need to achieve your goal. As many people are blind to anyone else but their chosen partner, you should be ready to stay faithful to your goals. You should make sure to keep in mind that all that glitters is not gold, so that the shiny balls of ideas around you, don’t deceive you.
Do I need to change?
Here’s an idea, because it can be tough to change the nature of most any adult who is already accustomed to their way of life. Why not adopt an activity which allows you the freedom to pursue however many different passions as you like? And all while generating income and flexibility to work according to your time and preference.
I’m talking about online trading. You have probably seen a little in the movies about investment and trading, but more than likely, you have not seen how trading has evolved into an online process. It allows those who practice it a wide range of benefits, without the burden of a regular 9-5 office job or the usual eight-hour shift, that most employers offer.
Online trading is something that you can start off with slowly and take on as much of as you want. It’s likely that you will find it more and more appealing because as you learn about the trade, your instincts will be keener and hence your trading will become more profitable.
Build the Right Kind of Walls
Imagine yourself as a ball of consciousness on a track of focus. Now imagine your goal on the opposite side of that track. You launch yourself on a journey toward that goal, but the journey is often unpredictable, and the ball of your consciousness doesn’t entirely take a straight path. What it does, is move in the general direction of the goal, but with a tendency to go slightly left or right, since it gets under the influence of magnetic attraction that comes from the surroundings of your track of focus. Namely, around that track, there are many shiny balls of ideas that attract you strongly enough and can make you attach to them, and consequently fall off the track and lose the focus of the initial goal. What you should naturally do is build walls on the sides of that track, walls of commitment. If those walls are thin, they will not be strong enough to keep you on the road. If they are stronger but not close to each other, you will be a bit safer from the shiny balls around you, but your path will be longer, as you bounce your way off the walls in the places of the attraction. Therefore, the ideal way to shorten your journey towards a goal is to secure your path with strong enough walls of commitment, while narrowing your path of focus.
Adopting other people’s goals is yet another path that leads to nowhere, and those who are susceptible to shiny ball syndrome should be especially careful not to succumb to it.
Find Your Passion
We have all had a person in our lives particularly skillful in drawing or playing an instrument, and often have we found ourselves thinking, or even saying out loud: “I wish I were that good at it!” Some of us have experienced such an intense wave of inspiration in those moments, that it made us pursue their goal ourselves, despite having little to no previous interest in it. But what we have failed to realize in those moments is that we don’t wish to do the same that they are doing. The truth behind it is that observing and analyzing someone else’s success puts a spell on us, tricking us into believing that what we want is to be successful the same way they are. The truth usually is that we want the success of the same intensity. What we wish, is to have a passion of our own and be that good at it. Therefore, it is essential to recognize these moments in life when one is chasing a shiny ball that was never theirs, to begin with, and resist the temptation that would make one spend years chasing false desires in vain. Even if you were to succeed in reaching another one’s goal the only thing you’d get out of it is feeling empty and unfulfilled. Why? It wasn’t your goal in the first place.
Anthony Robbins said: “Success without fulfillment is failure”, and we have to agree. A person who chases other people’s dreams ultimately has to start all over again, due to the lack of fulfillment. The real danger of it, is the fact that the previous pursuit can leave them drained for good, with no energy to start over.
Use Your Opportunities Right
What the last few decades have brought are more opportunities and options than ever before. We are continually being bombarded with new information and ideas, products and services, food, programs and applications, devices, books and courses, jobs, careers, and education. The mediums of marketing are unavoidable – everything is being marketed to us through the internet, television, radio, newspapers, billboards, and posters. It is called the age of the consumer for a reason: we soak up everything advertised, while the number of options is growing as you read this. In turn, we can’t help but feel overwhelmed by such aggressive advertisements that, when you think about it, borders on harassment.
Advertisers and salespeople are becoming more efficient at grabbing our attention, and since our minds are often too fertile to resist them, they manage to plant a plethora of seeds in it. What we’ve previously cultivated in our minds now becomes a jungle of wild ideas. In that jungle, not everything can thrive – you know what they say, “you can do anything but not everything.”
It’s YOUR Choice
If we don’t stand up for our own goals and dreams, nurture them and cultivate them, we will be swept away and distracted by the never-ending field of shiny balls being dangled in front of our nose each day. In other words, if we don’t learn to stand for something, we’ll fall for anything. If you find yourself unable to stop from trying many different career paths, be sure you don’t jeopardize your wallet in the process. Find an activity that can make you money and allow you the freedom to pursue your changing interests. It will provide you with the stability to live up to your financial responsibilities, and it will give you a sense of groundedness which is something that we all need in our lives.
