Are you prepared to ‘give up the goat’?
“The shepherd wanted to pass his flock across a river. A wolf passed by and afflicted his flock. The wise shepherd said, ‘what shall I do, he might destroy the flock as I move the lambs across.’ He raised his eyes and saw a wild goat, big and strong. He said ‘I shall throw him before the wolf. While they do battle with each other, I shall remove the flock and they shall be saved from him.'”
What are you prepared to give up to protect what you have?
Picture this: it’s Monday afternoon, you’ve had a rough day at work; not enough was accomplished. You’re beating yourself up for your lack of productivity and you had a slight run in with your boss. You have a choice:
- You can berate yourself and spend the rest of the week telling everyone about how Monday was a colossal fail; or
- You can throw Monday to the big bad wolf and shepherd the remainder of the week toward success.
Oftentimes we focus on the one thing that is going wrong; rather than attend to the 100 things that are going right. But focusing on what’s wrong (like beating ourselves up, complaining to other people, and talking about it) expends energy in the wrong direction. If we could just throw the wolf a bone, we can reinvest our energy toward what’s working and enjoy a picnic with our flock on the other side of the river.
Written in collaboration with Tanya Ezekiel of CareerCoach.com
