Watch Where You’re Looking

Where You Look Is Where You Go

I just finished a mountain bike ride and I'm sitting next to a creek. There are tiny purple wildflowers everywhere. It's really quite a special time here in .

But that's not actually what I want to talk about.

While I was riding today, I kept noticing something. Every time I spotted a rock on the trail — and there were a lot of them, sometimes two sitting just close enough together to be a problem — if I looked at the rock, I hit the rock. Every time.

But if I focused on the space between the rocks? That's exactly where my bike went. Like magic.

I've known this for years. It's the same principle whether you're mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding — where your attention goes, your body follows. Your energy follows. Your life follows.

And still. It is so easy to lock eyes on the thing you're afraid of hitting.

Here's what I think happens for a lot of us in midlife: we've spent so long scanning for what could go wrong that we forgot to look at where we actually want to go.

We stare at the rock. And then we wonder why we keep hitting it.

And the rocks look different for everyone. Sometimes it's the fear of getting it wrong — again. Of making another choice that doesn't pan out, so better not to choose at all. Sometimes it's replaying something from the past that didn't go the way you hoped, and letting that become the thing your eyes keep finding on the trail ahead.

Sometimes the rock is what other people will think. Sometimes it's the voice that says who do you think you are.Sometimes it's the very reasonable-sounding question of but what if I'm not ready — which can keep you standing still indefinitely, because ready is a moving target.

And sometimes, honestly, the rock is just the habit of vigilance. So many of us spent years in survival mode — holding everything together, managing everyone's needs, staying alert for what might go sideways. That hyperawareness kept things running. But it also trained our eyes to stay fixed on what could go wrong instead of what's possible.

What if you practiced, even just for today, putting your attention on the open space? Not the obstacle. Not the fear. The path through.

That's where you'll go. Because that's where you're looking.