In the photo you see our son. He enthusiastically bangs on the windows when a squirrel appears in the garden in the morning and comes close enough to inspect him. He is a little over a year old now and speaks a handful of words, but understands much more than that. When we say “squirrel”, he looks expectantly towards the garden.
One day before he arrived a little earlier than expected, my girlfriend and I moved into our current home — a house with a beautiful garden.
When we first lived here, we would occasionally see a squirrel in the distance, high in the trees. Not long afterwards I gave my girlfriend two small wooden squirrel houses, a rope bridge and a set of baskets for nuts. It took her a little while to get used to the gift.
Every week we faithfully filled the feeders with squirrel food. During the first few months, it was mostly the birds that seemed to enjoy it. Every now and then a squirrel appeared. We learned that walnuts are a favourite and that the houses were better placed a little higher in the tree and not facing southwest.
About a year later, we see one or two squirrels in the garden almost every morning when we get up. Often they are less than half a metre away, on the other side of the window. We seem to have a few regular visitors: Big Freek, Little Freek and Chip.
This week, for the first time, a squirrel appeared during a coaching session — and I decided to write this piece.
“What you pay attention to grows.”
When you really want to achieve something, you greatly increase your chances by investing time, love and attention in it. The books ‘The Talent Code‘ and ‘Grit‘ are both worth reading. They show that people are not simply born with a huge amount of talent. Strong performance is built by investing time, care and attention.
Quite often, the issue is not that we lack the right intentions to work on what matters to us. What we lack is focus.
Now imagine you had enough focus, time, love and attention available. In which area of your life would you want to grow?
Continue reading: explore coaching, or read Why self-efficacy matters and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs applied.
