Mermaids used to be the sign of hope, sailors who would catch a glimpse of a mermaid during their sea voyage would be blessed with good luck, but then someone apparently saw a mermaid, then the ship was in a storm that ran it aground on the rocks of a nearby landmass… and so the mermaid, who had been the sign of hope, suddenly became the harbinger of evil, a siren who would lead you to your doom.
We often find this phenomena in companies, leaders and relationships…
When we first start a job, a relationship, get a new boss… we have hope, the greater possibility of happiness and success in our lives. But, when there is a storm… and there will always be a storm, that hope turns to unrealized expectations, and then the bringer of hope is suddenly transformed to a dark image. The question is, “Has that person really changed?” or is it that our expectations far outweighed the reality, that we focused only on the great and deleted the rest, and now, after the storm, we suddenly delete the good and focus on the bad. In many situations, it is not the mermaids fault, the storm is the storm and the mermaid remains the mermaid with all the good and the bad.
So how is your focus affecting your bigger goals, do you blame the mermaid when there is a storm, or do you hold on to the hope and keep sight of the light at the end of the storm? What have you given up on? What has it cost you? What are a few minor modifications you can make that would make your hopes more real even though there may be occasional storms?