Why You Should Stop Wearing Blinkers

Do you know why race horses wear blinkers? Those odd-looking black or brown coloured things at the side of their heads?

Well, the idea is to stop these fine equine specimens from looking around during races, and to simply look ahead. This makes it easier for the horse rider to steer them in the right direction, while minimising the possibility that an animal, person or object in the horse's field of vision may distract or frighten the beast.

While blinkers are great during occasions when the animal need to charge ahead—and win the race—they also limit the peripheral vision of these beasts. In other words, the blinkers prevent them from seeing what or who is around them, be it friend or foe.

Repeatedly wearing blinkers also limits the independence and the will of the horses. They make it easier for their owners and trainers to ride them, without worrying about the animals wandering off to the wrong place. They reduce their curiosity, and their keenness to discover the greater world around them.

In a sense, blinkers help to keep them in these horses right where they ought to be, at least in the eyes of their owners and rider. They are only focused on the job at hand and nothing else.

While blinkers may work well for racehorses, they may be a disaster for you as a professional or an entrepreneur.

Why is this so?

Well, by shutting off the surrounding voices and insights, they lead towards the path of insular thinking and tunnel vision. This results in narrow-mindedness, and the inability to embrace new vistas of opportunity.

Wearing blinkers also reduces your ability to feel and empathise with the needs, wants and desires of others. You are always charging ahead in a single direction, thinking of growth, growth, growth while riding roughshod over the feelings of those around you.

I'm not saying that wearing blinkers are necessarily bad all the time. There are occasions where they come in useful.

By helping you to focus primarily on what you wish to do up ahead, blinkers help you to build a firm and steely resolve. They minimise your heart and mind from being sidetracked. They let you focus only on the steps needed to accomplish your goal. They prevent distractions from derailing your progress.

However, blinkers also have the undesired result of making you unresponsive to what others feel. You end up thinking that its "my way or the highway," and eliminate what your associates, colleagues, partners, distributors or clients think. You plough on relentlessly in the same direction doing the same thing, without considering if you are truly achieving your goals (or just running a one-horse race).

Over the long-term, this has the negative effect of alienating business and professional relationships. By ignoring others, you may seemingly progress faster. However, sooner or later, you'll run out of steam running your own race.

As your energy levels fade, you will need to stop for a drink of water. Or to fuel up.

And you discover that in your enthusiasm, passion and single-minded stubbornness to pursue the goal in front of you, you have left others far behind.

Or they have all abandoned your ship, leaving you alone to navigate the stormy seas ahead. Your crew have bailed out, and nobody is left to drop the anchor, hoist your sail (when your spirits are low), or help you to look out for the iceberg in treacherous dark waters.

And you have gone too far ahead on the wrong road. One that eventually doesn't really lead anywhere. A mirage of a destination that looks like an oasis from far, but is in reality a barren desert bereft of mission, meaning and purpose.

If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together. - African proverb

To prevent ourselves from wearing blinkers in our desire to get ahead, we need to slow down a little. We need to reduce the speed of our gallop to a trot, and spend time pondering over what's really happening.

Chat with those around us to distill what they feel. Notice the body language when they speak—is there anything amiss in their facial expressions and gestures, tone of voice, or energy levels?

True, it is much faster for you to run alone rather than to drag along an entire carriage full of passengers. However, I can bet that having the right people join you on the journey helps to make it sweeter, more meaningful, and enriching.

Your pace may not be as fast as you wish, but every step becomes oh so much happier in the journey of life.

Walter is the founder and editor of Cooler Insights—a critically thinking content marketing, social media marketing and brand storytelling agency. Fuel your business with the latest insights in digital and content marketing, public relations and personal branding.