My family and I drove out of Florida in the early morning a few weeks ago. When I looked out the car window over the swampy area, there was a thick blanket of fog. The palm tree tops were still visible. Most of the surrounding scenery was clear except this small pocket of fog. It made me think about what foggy mindsets do I have in my life. What is blocking my vision? What can interfere with clarity of thought? Things like overwhelm or procrastination come to my mind.
Low lying fog off of Highway 75 in Florida
Foggy mindsets can be like that low lying fog. They can masquerade as your normal thinking. You can still sort of see enough to know what you are looking at. You don't even know you have them sometimes except for a small niggling feeling of intuition breaking through, maybe I could do this or I could be open to this or that in my life.
These foggy mindsets are usually about limitation or lack mindsets. Why wouldn't we all be open to an abundant and clear mindset? When you put it that way, of course, we would. But foggy mindsets are a little sneaky. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but in most cases, we are the ones limiting ourselves by how we are looking at the world and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our place in the world.
I am not talking about setting specific clear goals of accomplishing stuff, but instead a clarity of thought, a vision of how you see the world and how you want your life to be. If the fog had lifted, I would have seen the unique Florida palm trees, shrubby plants and ferns in all the detail of the morning sun hitting the land with the angled laser beam of the sunlight at dawn rising above the horizon.
In 2017, I want to be very clear about what is most important to me.
I will let go of the preconceived notions of how things should be or what outcome I want and instead enjoy the journey.
I will ...
Focus on the doing
Focus on what I have control over
Keep punching the clock of making art and sharing my art
Be open to possibilities
I will look for the foggy areas and try to replace them with an appreciation of the rich detailed life all around me. Gratitude is usually the answer.
I am continuing to think about new adventures and projects for 2017. I have given myself the rest of January to continue to ponder and daydream. I’ll let you know what I come up with.