See Where You Are Going

In my last post, toward the end, I said, “If you have a clear picture of where you want to go, you start with the paradigm that will help you detect the road blocks.”

I want to talk about that clear picture – the end in mind.

pathway between green leafed trees — Photo by mali maeder on Pexels.com

How to Use a Compass

I don’t remember much about how to use a compass from Girl Scouts. What I do remember is that after you figure out the direction you want to go in, you find a prominent tree or rock far away, and focus on that. When you get to that landmark, you use your compass again and pick an new landmark in that direction. If you stare down at the compass in your hands, it’s easy to get off course. By following heading to a landmark off in the distance, you are drawing one long straight line, instead of short lines that squiggle around.

People Naturally Walk in Circles

There was an experiement where participantss were blindfolded to see if people really do walk in circles. And people really do. Here is a quote from an article about the study:

“Most participants meandered this way and that, occasionally walking in circles as small as 20 meters in diameter. …

Previous studies, dating back to the 1920s, have found that people tend to veer from a straight path when they’re unable to see, she says, but in pre-GPS days, researchers weren’t able to track people long and far enough to see them walk in complete circles.

When people can see where they’re going, however, it’s a different story. Souman and his colleagues also tracked volunteers as they walked without blindfolds in two unfamiliar environments: a forest in Germany, and, thanks to a junket arranged by Kopfball, in the Sahara desert in Tunisia. In the forest, people again walked in circles–but only on cloudy days. When the sun was visible, they could walk in a more or less straight line for several hours. The same was true in the sunny Sahara. Visual cues such as the sun or the shadows it casts enable people to overcome the tendency to walk in circles, Souman says.”