We’ve all experienced it at least once in our lives. If you haven’t yet, it will happen to you too. You start making progress on that important project or very important task. You finally get into the zone; That place where magic happens, incredible amounts of creativity begins to flow and everything seems to be going as planned. Then, without warning, BAM, someone has an emergency that must be taken care of right now.
This week it seemed like there were nothing but fires. They weren’t real fires, but they were pretty successful at derailing my attempts at getting into my zone. After the fires died down, I was finally able to recover. I did have to put in some extra work to catch up.
When working with the Boy Scouts, we talk about build fires and fire safety. You need three basic components to have a successful fire (fuel, air, heat). When you take away one of these, a fire cannot exist. To put out a fire, we usually, take away one or more of the components. Without the three together, the fire will quickly or eventually die out.
The tools we use for putting out a fire are water, sand and shovel. These work together to remove the heat and air from the fire. The fuel is still there, but without air and heat the fire will stop.
Fires do happen from time to time. But we can do our part to minimize their effects on others.
So, how can we deal with the fires in life:
- learn how they get started
- learn how to put them out
- teach others to do the same
- practice what you preach
Till next time, do some personal fire prevention