At a time when winter is the season for many, it’s good to reflect on warmer times.
Those moments when you’ve sat by a window on a warm, summer’s day. You gaze out, enjoying the lazy relaxed peacefulness of blue sky, sunshine and maybe the sea… perhaps, you’ve been absorbed in a book and have taken a moment to raise your eyes and appreciate the view.
That’s when you notice you are sharing the view with a fly.
However, the fly is far from relaxed. It is buzzing and whining and crashing its body against the window pane in vain efforts to escape into the fresh air beyond.
You watch, the fly’s relentless, frenzied attempts to break through the glass; it pauses, as if to regain breath, then once again throws itself at the barrier between itself and the outside.
Why doesn’t it turn around and fly out the open door?
Indeed, the fly is blinded by its efforts and, instead of looking for an alternative, it persists in its strategy for escape, even though it is a strategy doomed to failure.
Now, the fly may not know any other behaviour and so is unable to act differently. It doesn’t know that it could take another approach, that there are other options. It doesn’t know that taking an unsuccessful strategy and doing more of it, harder and for longer, is never going to achieve a successful outcome.
A different approach is required. A willingness to change and let go of established ideas.
Because, no matter how hard you try in your personal or professional life, if it’s not working, trying harder won’t change anything.