Do you find yourself working very hard at a thing and not progressing? Or are you in a relationship that is going nowhere? That could be due to the blind spots in your life. Blind spots are the areas in our life that we cannot see and unaware of. It’s usually an undesirable behavior, reaction or habit that is driven by our thoughts and believes about ourselves, other people or the world.
While it’s easy to see where another person has gone wrong or their ‘stupidities’, it’s common to have blind spots ourselves. Even if you are a very humble and down to earth person, your blind spot could be that you are really gifted in an area but just not aware of it! Blind spots are part of being human. These are the things we fail to see, or choose to ignore. Blind spots are pot holes in our lives and it can stumble us in relationships and in achieving our goals. It can keep us stuck in a problem or miss out on opportunities.
Here are some blind spots that can trap us
Lack of awareness
Some blind spots are unintentional and happens because we cannot see ourselves and nobody has every pointed it out to us.
E.g, An extra bubbly personality may be well liked by most and hence enjoy being the sunshine in everyone’s life. However, this person may fail to see that some friend may not always be having a good day and may not enjoy such ultra-positivity all the time.
What to do?
Focus on daily self-awareness will help to uncover this blind spot
Failure to think through
When we work on problems and make decisions without thinking through all sides of the matter or the consequences of our action, we fall into our blind side.
E.g, Many of us can be blind-sided when we get excited about the things that we’ve always wanted. That’s how scams and online fraud works. Failure to get accurate feedback and check through facts can cause us to fall into these traps.
What to do?
Think of what gets you emotional and hold yourself back from being impulsive or impatient, then check for facts before acting.
Self-deception
When we know that the way we live or the things we do are harmful yet refuse to believe that anything bad can result from it, we are lying to ourselves. Usually it is hard to realise that we are deceiving ourselves.
E.g, Some of us have habits that don’t serve us, such as smoking, eating too much fast food and procrastinating important work. But we fool ourselves by saying that the bad consequences only happens to other people but not us.
What to do?
Get feedback from people who care about you and honestly want the best for you.
Knowing but not caring about consequences
Often people know that their actions can cause negative consequences but they continue with these actions. They use excuses such as ‘I can’t help it’ or ‘I don’t care what happens’. They choose not to see that their actions can result in bad consequences for themselves and those they love.
E.g, Sometimes we make decision or continue with bad habits knowing that it will cause us and our loved ones unhappiness and grief. Yet we may continue to do so because we don’t know of a better way out of it or we are not willing to bear the cost of changing the way we do things.
What to do?
Ask yourself what are you avoiding or what are you unwilling to give up? What do you really want and how can you find an alternative way to get it?
Going on with life without knowing our blind spots is like fighting an enemy with blind folds on. Ask yourself these questions to find your blind spots
- What problems am I avoiding?
- What opportunities am I ignoring?
- What’s really going on?
- What am I overlooking?
- What do I refuse to see?
- What don’t I want to do?
- What assumptions am I making?
- What am I failing to consider?
- How am I dishonest to myself?
- What am I really afraid of?
- If other people are honest with me, what will they tell me?
Now that you have some hints about your blind spots, don’t beat yourself up for failing to see it earlier. Often blind spots arise from distorted thinking. The purpose of uncovering these gaps in our thoughts and behavior is to change the way we see and do things.
What are some of the blind spots of your other fav characters? Share with us.
