A Focused Gaze: Using the Yogic Technique Drishti to Guide Your Business Practices
I firmly believe that the skills you learn in one field do not exist in a vacuum. What you learn from one discipline can have immense value in another. Your experiences from doing one activity will teach you lessons that can be applied to something completely different.
Everything is connected.
That’s what I’m going to show you right now: How to take the teachings and philosophies from one practice and apply them to your business. Sometimes, taking a technique from a seemingly unrelated field and using it in business can prove to be the greatest tool for efficiency and achieving your goals.
Allow me to introduce you to Drishti, a Sanskrit term for “eyesight” or “vision”, commonly referenced in the yogic practice as a focused gaze. It’s not a stretch to see how having a focused gaze will be highly beneficial in business practices, keeping you balanced on everything from setting your goals to taking action on them.
A Look Back
Let’s take a brief look back at what we’ve been talking about the past few months. All my work, from the information I put out through my blog to the role I play in my client’s businesses, is to help individuals achieve their desired future state.
The first step in moving towards your future state is defining your core values. Taking a look inward at the principles and people that really matter to you is key to aligning your business with these values. From these values, you’re able to construct goals that will move your business in the right direction, whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve.
After that, it’s all about applying the right strategies that are going to help you succeed. This means making your goals manageable, staying agile, and finding the right operational plan for your business. Once you have the groundwork laid, all that’s left is to hustle, keep your momentum, and achieve your goals. And don’t forget to have fun along the way!
Seems simple enough.
We all know that nothing in life is that simple, least of all business.
The world is filled with distractions. Ideas from other people, ideas inside your own head. Other tasks to do, other things to read, other work to do, other goals to be set.
It can be hard to keep moving forward when you feel like you’re going in too many directions.
One could say that the best way to stay focused is just to focus even harder.
But that’s not the solution I’m going to offer here.
Drishti doesn’t talk about focus - it talks about balance
During a yoga practice, your body is placed in positions that challenge both your physical and mental capacity. You may have your legs bent and arms raised high or one leg straight and the other held in the air as you lean forward. Often, when holding a pose, seconds can feel like hours. You can feel your muscles twitching, the sweat dripping down your face, and your mind seems to want to focus on anything other than what your body is feeling in that exact moment.
Drishti teaches you to stop, breathe, and bring all your attention to one thing in front of you.
When you’re trying to keep your balance, but you can feel yourself starting to wobble, letting your eyes and mind wander all over isn’t what you need.
Lock your gaze onto something solid and stable in front of you and hold that pose. Almost immediately, it’s ‘easier’ to balance, right?
This not only trains your eyes to connect to that one object, but your brain, too. When your eyes are wandering, so is your mind. Your energy is scattered and unbalanced. Your gaze determines where your energy flows.
Stay with me here.
Think of your eyes as the doorway to your mind. When your gaze is fixed, your mind will not wander. Your attention is important and powerful. Drishti lets you take control, harness your attention, and use it as a tool to guide your mind.
Achieve Your Goals
When you’re in the office during a board meeting or brainstorming session, you likely won’t be trying to balance on one leg. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t still need a focused gaze in your life. It might be tempting to be thinking about your next meeting, or the previous one, or the assignment that’s due tomorrow, or what you’re having for dinner that night.
It can also be easy to ‘chase shiny things’ as you read articles or listen to podcasts about the newest, latest and greatest. (I need to stop what I’m doing and do this other thing because that internet person said it’s the key to success! Sound familiar?)
There will always be things trying to pull at your attention. Use drishti to control your gaze and focus on what you want to achieve.
As a business leader, you’ll often have several different things happening at once. Multiple projects, multiple tasks, multiple distractions.
But distractions are only distracting if you allow them to be.
Drishti doesn’t mean no distractions, it is simply a practice to allow you to guide your gaze and stay balanced on the task at hand. When you’re not trying to complete one objective while thinking about five other ones, you will find yourself to be a more efficient, creative, and focused individual.
This focus will spread to your team as well. When everyone within the organization is aligned on the same target, the same future state, productivity will increase and the goals will be more easily achieved.
“Where our focus goes, our energy flows.”
- Tony Robbins, Author, coach, speaker
This is a concept that is applicable to everything you do. Whether it’s a deal you’re working to close, a new skill you’re trying to learn, or a yoga pose you’re trying to hold, your focus determines where your energy goes.
No matter where in the optimization process you are: establishing your vision, setting your goals, or developing your strategy, a focused gaze will keep you moving in the right direction- and increase your chances drastically of not only meeting, but exceeding, your goals.
Moving towards your future state.