Who you are today is a result of all the decisions you’ve taken in your life, going all the way back to when you were a child, and as far as your career is concerned, going back to the first thought you had about becoming a racing driver. So the way your life looks today, how fast you are progressing in your career, the quality of the relationships you have and whether or not you are happy, are all related to decisions that were made in the long forgotten past, in the last couple of months and the in the last couple of days, or even hours.
This is a well-known and understood principle that finds its basis in both religion and the secular world. In Buddhism Karma means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. The term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, where the intent and actions of an individual influence the future of that individual. The Christian bible refers to “You Reap What You Sow”, where to reap is ’to gather a crop’ and to sow is ‘to plant seeds’… sowing is used as a metaphor for one’s actions and reaping for the results of those actions. Additionally we have all hear of used the term “What Goes Around Comes Around”.
What we have to get out of our heads is any thought that luck has to play in our future… yes there can be good and bad things that can happen to us which are out of our direct control but ‘luck’ tends to even out over time (bookies and casinos eventually win). Ultimately we can predict our future based on the decisions (especially the difficult ones) that we make in every moment, and once we have made these decisions they move forward independently creating our ultimate fate. If you work hard and eventually succeed in achieving your goals you can be justly proud of yourself… but if you fail due to lazy, poor decisions, rightly, you would be justified in blaming yourself. You are not a victim of bad luck but you are a victim of the decisions you have taken in the past.
The odds on becoming a professional racing driver are extremely thin, so your job is to try and stack the odds in your favour. If you are regularly choosing to make decisions that are not in line with your goals, you will very soon find yourself performing below the required level of performance. Hopefully before it is too late you will remember all the late nights, the morning lie-ins, the missed training sessions, the poor nutrition, drills run at low intensity, skipped mindfulness classes, the time spent on social media, your poor application to race plans and reviews, etc., etc. Thinking about each of these separately may look like nothing serious to you. But, combining them and seeing the whole picture will hopefully open your eyes to what you are allowing to happen, and the logic is that your current situation should absolutely be expected.
Here are three ways to start to take control of your future:
Stop and be mindfully aware - We live on autopilot most of the time and many of our decisions are made unconsciously. So, before you do anything, try to stop for a few seconds, look around, understand what’s going on and think about it. That will make you mindful of what you’re about to do… examine the pros and cons.
Think about your future self – In the future, will you be happy with the decision you are about to make? Will it make you faster or slower?
See the bigger picture - You may make this choice now, okay. But if you’re realistic, it won’t be just one time (even if you’re so sure now). So consider the long-term outcome of a few decisions like that… or doing it for years… or daily. Try to imagine how you’re going to feel about it after some time. Will you see yourself scraping a living as an instructor at a racing school, constantly seeing drivers you raced against driving for major manufacturers and winning titles. Will you be blaming your luck or… the decisions you made. Is that how you want to spend your life?
So the only way to change that negative outcome is to come back to the present moment, be fully mindful of it, and make good decisions. And there are ways to stay positive and feel the benefits of these choices, even though you’re going through the inevitable hard times that come with any professional career:
Focus on what you already have;
Be grateful, appreciate it;
Know you’re doing something about your future today;
Imagine how proud you’ll be some time in the future;
Know you’re fighting your inner demons;
Every time you make a decision and consider your future self, you’re building character and becoming responsible for your career;
Your willpower increases;
You’re a role model for others.
And finally… have you recently made small choices which will affect your future? How do you feel after that?