“Stay In Your Own Lane”…

I confess.  Sometimes I watch “Celebrity Apprentice”.  Yes, I know it’s just superficial entertainment, but a few weeks ago I actually learned something from it.  When asked what was the secret to her success in getting “hired” and winning “Celebrity Apprentice”, Leeza Gibbons said “I stayed in my own lane and didn’t get involved in the dramas”.  Pretty simple, eh?  A lot of wisdom contained in a short sentence…

What is “staying in your own lane”?  Basically, it means being yourself, knowing your strengths and limitations, and respecting both.  So many times in life we get distracted and sidetracked, we vary from our core competencies and drift over to areas we’re not very expert in, and often we bear the consequences.  I don’t think we do so maliciously, just carelessly. I remember my father saying to me after our children were born, “now you’re going to have to get a real doctor”.  As a surgeon, he was comfortable advising us adults on our medical matters, but he realized our little children required a pediatrician.  He knew how to “stay in his lane”…

Does this mean we shouldn’t take some chances and explore expanding into new areas of endeavor?  Of course not!  It just means when we venture into new arenas that we do so quite intentionally, knowing we’re “new at it” and not yet expert at all.

Leeza’s next point refers to drama.  There’s an art to not getting involved in the dramas that swirl around us.  Refraining from getting involved doesn’t mean we’re being insensitive to others, it simply means we recognize that getting involved isn’t necessarily helpful. Taking sides in a difficulty almost happens when we get entangled in someone else’s drama, and this only complicates the situation.   Remember, the dramas are all about other people’s lives.  You can only be effective and creative in your own life, so keep your energies there. Remember, we can’t control the other person, only ourselves, so devote your attention to staying current with yourself, attending to what needs doing each day, and not getting sucked into other people’s dilemmas and upsets.  We’ll tend to do this in the hope that we’ll feel better about our own situations, but all we really accomplish is to temporarily distract ourselves.  So think twice before falling into participating in the dramas…