Just imagine you have a brilliant idea, then you decided to act on it and when you are making headway, suddenly a better idea came and then you became distracted. You then decided to act on that better idea and while acting on it, suddenly another better and brighter idea came about and you decided to leave all the other better ideas behind and act on the new one. By continuously doing this, you would have already left what would have been two great ideas behind. This is what happened when we are not focus and never feeling satisfied. As the saying goes, it is better to focus on what you have rather than what you don’t. By the time you decide to return to your original idea, it may already be too late as someone may have already taken and acted on that idea. This is true especially when it comes to relationship or when you are negotiating and then returning to your earlier offer.
In relationships, how many times have we come across people leaving their spouses or loved ones for someone new and then again to return to their loved ones when they discovered that the “grass is not greener” on the other side. When the person returned to their spouse or loved one, there is no guarantee that their return will be accepted by their spouses or their loved ones. There could be several reasons for this, such as no one wants to be “Plan B” which include the spouse or the loved one or perhaps the spouse or loved one has already move on and found someone better. Therefore, focus on what you have rather than looking for someone new!
As for the second example of negotiating and then returning to your earlier offer, I can relate to this rather well as it happened to me many years ago. It took me sometime to change my mindset and kicked that old habit of not being focus. Let me share with you one of those incidents. There was a time when I was browsing in one of the shops selling electrical appliances. I was interested in one of the items and had every intention to purchase it. I got hold of one of the salespeople and enquired about the item, its warranty and the price. We negotiated or rather haggled on the price until the salesperson accepted my offer. However, before I could conclude with payment, something else caught my eyes. I decided to abandon the earlier item and enquired about the new item. It was rather obvious that the salesperson wasn’t as enthusiastic in explaining to me as before. This was probably due to two reasons. One, the salesperson probably found that I wasn’t a reliable buyer and two, I may be perceived to be on a “shopping” or “fishing expedition” to gather information on products and prices and had no intention to purchase the item. By the time, I have decided to buy the first item, someone had made an offer to buy that item at a price higher than my first offer. It was too late for me. Seeing that I had no choice, I returned to the second item and made an offer. This time the salesperson drove a real hard bargain and was hard fast on holding on to the price. Being an experience salesperson, he knew that my options have now been restricted, therefore he had the upper hand. Secondly, he knew that like human beings with huge ego, I did not like losing out from the first item and he knew that I would go all out for the second item to reclaim my huge ego which I lost earlier. He made it really challenging for me and subsequently I bought the item. I was happy with the item but I think I would have got it for a far lesser amount if I just focused and saw through the negotiation earlier.
Before I end this article, let me share with you a humourous incident which happened to me a couple of days ago relating to “being focus”. One of the things that we do in our house is that we switched on our dishwasher after 10.00pm every night. Why 10.00pm? Well, that is because 10.00pm is the off peak period when it comes to electricity usage charges. Before going to bed, my wife asked me to switch on the dishwasher after 10.00pm. At that time I was really sleepy but forced myself to stay awake until 10.00pm. I waited till slightly after 10.00pm then I went to bed. Next morning, my wife informed me that I did not switch on the dishwasher the previous night. I had to laugh out loud when she said that because what I did the previous night was indeed silly and laughable. I waited and forced myself to stay awake till 10.00pm and then switched off all the lights and went to bed forgetting the reason why I need to stay awake till 10.00pm. You see, I did not focus on the task but rather I focused on the time. So, sometimes focusing on the wrong thing may get you into trouble. That was definitely a lesson which will remain with me for a very long time!
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