Birds Before Land
Many of the big, meaningful changes we want to experience take time. They unfold over time and in a way that we almost never can quantify or completely influence or accurately predict.
And sometimes when we’re working toward a change that takes time, one of the challenges we face is that we get caught up in waiting for the big change to happen.
In other words, we’re so focused on waiting for the entire change to materialize in full that we end up overlooking all of the signs and indicators along the way that are confirmation that what we’re doing day after day is actually working - and we end up missing opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate all of the indicators that precede that big change we want to see.
In this episode I’ll introduce you to a concept that will help you tune into the progress that you’re making each day, and that will help you develop an enthusiasm for not just for the end result, but the entire process.
Episode Transcription
Intro:
Many of the big, meaningful changes we want to experience take time, and they unfold in a way that we almost never can quantify or completely influence or accurately predict.
And sometimes when we’re working toward a change that takes time, one of the challenges we face is that we get caught up in waiting for the big change to happen.
In other words, we’re so focused on waiting for the entire change to materialize in full that we end up overlooking all of the signs and indicators along the way that are confirmation that what we’re doing day after day is actually working - and we end up missing opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate all of the indicators that precede that big change we want to see.
So in this episode I want to introduce you to a concept that will help you tune into the progress that you’re making each day, and that will help you develop an enthusiasm for not just the end result, but the entire process.
Here we go.
Main:
I was introduced recently to a concept that I want to share with you that I think is powerful stuff. And I was introduced to it by a woman named Jhanna Goldenflame who has been my longtime coach and mentor and she’s an all around amazing human being. I wanted to single her out for this episode because this concept that she introduced to me is something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the past few weeks.
So right now I’m in the middle of taking a course with her that’s focused on manifestation - which is basically the idea that we are able to create something in our life through bringing our thoughts, actions, beliefs, and emotions all into alignment.
So in other words, if I want to see a change in my life, I can work toward bringing about that change by adopting a certain belief about the possibility of having or achieving that thing, I can put myself into an emotional state that makes me feel like I am deserving of that thing and actually make myself feel like I already have it or that it’s imminent, I can direct time and energy towards thought patterns that are focused on looking for opportunities that will bring me closer to having that thing, and with all of those in place I can take intentional actions that align with those thoughts and beliefs.
And I don’t want to spend a lot of time going into the science behind how this works, but there actually is science behind what we can accomplish when we bring our thoughts, actions, beliefs and emotions all into alignment.
What I do want to focus on today though is one of the concepts contained within this practice which is the idea of birds before land.
So this phrase birds before land has its roots in sailing terminology, specifically explorers who were sailing uncharted territory. So as an explorer who’d been out to sea for weeks or months and who had no idea whether they were traveling in the right direction, one of the tell tale signs that they were close to land was that they would see driftwood floating in the water or birds circling in the sky - because birds couldn’t venture very far from land.
So for an explorer, seeing birds meant you were on to something and pretty close to reaching your destination.
This concept of birds before land is really a perfect analogy to study and internalize in the context of changes that we want to make to our lives, or to things that we want to accomplish or create. And that’s because many of the meaningful changes we want to see take time. They unfold over time and in a way that we almost never can quantify, or control or predict. So even if we’re doing everything we can to set something into motion, even if we are bringing our thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions into alignment, and despite the strength of our resolve or our desire to see a certain change, we still have to let the process unfold in its own time.
And if you think about it, it’s often our inability to quantify, control or predict how long it will take something to materialize in our life that’s the hardest part of trying to make changes, right? Even if we can envision a change we want to see for ourselves, even if we can feel it, it’s the uncertainty around the timing and circumstances that causes us to feel discouraged or to doubt that what we’re doing moment to moment, day to day, is actually working.
We can feel like that explorer who’s been out to sea for weeks or months or years and we can start to wonder whether we’re ever going to see land.
So as a starting point, I think it’s interesting to note how discouraging it can be for us when we can’t see land immediately.
And that’s where this concept comes into play: When we’re so focused on spotting land, and when we’re so focused on waiting for the entire thing that we want to materialize in full, what we end up doing is ignoring and overlooking all of the signs that are confirmation for us that what we’re actually doing is working.
In other words, we get so caught up in looking for land, that we miss all of the birds that are circling around us day to day, moment to moment. We miss the tiny indicators that are the precursor to us having that thing that we want, or accomplishing that goal that we’ve set, or realizing that ultimate change that we want to make. We overlook the micro changes or signs that we’re on the right path because the lens that we’re looking at our experience through is trained to spot the big things, and not the smaller but nonetheless important indicators.
So let me give you a quick example. I’ve talked about this before but I’m an adjunct professor at a few law schools in the Bay Area, and I teach a class that’s focused on helping law students to really dig down to understand what they want from their career, and to help them take intentional action while they’re in school to design and lay the foundation for their career.
And one of my favorite students from the past few years of teaching has always wanted to land a job at a big law firm as a transactional attorney.
I can remember back to one of the first classes I had with him a few years ago where we were going around the room and talking about our ideal career, and I remember him verbalizing his desire, his very specific desire, to practice business law and advise companies.
And the thing that I really liked from the beginning about this student was his enthusiasm for the pursuit of landing this job and his appreciation for the process. One of the things that we talk about in my class is the power of forming networks. And for many people the idea of networking or network building can feel impersonal or awkward or transactional, but part of what I teach my students is that look, networking is really just two people coming together to learn about how they can support one another professionally.
It’s just about showing people who you are, listening, and looking for commonalities and opportunities to support the other person. And if you approach relationships with people in that way - with an eye toward wanting to learn and looking to help them - great things are going to happen. Period.
And my student really embraced this idea. So as one of the assignments in our class, I ask my students to go out and start to build a network by just contacting people they want to meet and having conversations with them.
So as part of that assignment he just went out and began to talk to people about the job he wanted, he would cold email, he would get on the phone, he would make an effort to meet in person, and sometimes he would have great conversations with people who weren’t in a position to help him in any way at that point, but the conversations helped to shape his perspective and refine the way he talked out loud about and verbalized what he wanted.
And so fast forward a year or so and I get an email from my student a few weeks ago and he wanted to talk for a few minutes about where he was at. So we schedule a call and get on the phone, and he’s telling me about two opportunities that have come his way.
And both of the opportunities are great opportunities, but they’re not exactly on point for him. And during our call he’s telling me about the kind of conversations he’s having with people, and how people are rapidly and without hesitation introducing him to other people who are doing the exact kind of work he wants to do, and I’m sitting there listening to him and I’m thinking to myself - this is birds before land.
He is finding himself in a position where he’s entered a stream of people and connections who are aligned with what he REALLY wants to do, and as a listener it was so clear to me that he was right on the verge of landing THE job he wanted.
So actually on our call, I brought up this idea of birds before land, and I told him that it was so clear to me that all of the indicators were present for him, and that there was no doubt in my mind that even though he had these two other opportunities in front of him, I felt like he was about to get exactly what he wanted. The indicators were just too strong for him not to.
So. About a week later I get an email from him, with lots of exclamation points in it, saying that he had had an unexpected series of conversations with a few people who introduced him to other people at a big law firm, and after speaking with them on a Monday they called him that same night to offer him the job. And this was not just any job, this was THE job that he wanted to a T. He could not have written a job description that was more on point than the one he found himself in.
And the opening line of his email was: Well, looks like your birds before land saying last week was spot on.
So of course, I can’t tell you how excited I am for my student, and I know he’s going to do big big things with his career.
And I wanted to relay this story because it’s just such a simple but perfect example of how this idea of birds before land works.
He was practicing birds before land but didn’t even know it. And what I mean by that is he was noticing that the micro-opportunities he was taking advantage of to connect with people were moving him incrementally closer to the thing that he wanted. Even if he wasn’t able to see clearly how it would all turn out, he still continued to express a belief that a conversation here and an introduction there were signs that he was getting closer every day to the thing he wanted.
So I want to take this example and this idea of birds before land, and I want to encourage you to apply this type of lens to something right now in your life that you want to experience, or to achieve, or to become. And here’s why this is so important.
First, and this is the most obvious reason, focusing on the birds is a way to consistently receive confirmation that what you’re doing is working for you. So in lieu of major milestones, we can look to these mini indicators as confirmation that we’re on the right track. And these could be as simple as a feeling you get when you’ve had a great conversation where you’ve learned something. It can be an insight you’ve gained, or someone you’ve met who helps you to reshape the way you’re thinking about something you want, or something you’re working toward. If you’ve started a new business, it’s the early sales you make, even if they’re not coming in as fast as you want.
We often completely blow past these things as non-indicators, but it turns out that it’s these things, stacked up over time, these are the things that roll themselves into momentum and progress.
And so the more we’re paying attention to how often those are actually happening, the more confirmation we have and the more visibility we have into our progress.
Second, once you start acknowledging the birds, it infuses the entire process - your everyday existence - with an enthusiasm FOR the process. In other words, what you previously may have seen as a burdensome undertaking that’s just helping you to get to where you want, that suddenly becomes an enjoyable experience, something that allows you to see and celebrate small wins, and to enjoy the steps it takes to get there.
It allows you to show up for the entire process, day to day, with the belief that you already have what you’re working toward. So I want to make sure that you can hear what I mean by that. Using my student as an example, he took the indicators he was seeing and turned it into a belief that he would have this job at some point in the future, and then he translated that belief into a present-day feeling that allowed him to show up for every conversation and every introduction and every screening interview in a state of mind that made him feel like he already had the job. And that belief and feeling that it was just a matter of time before the job was his translated into an enthusiasm that everyone he interacted with could sense.
And that in turn led those people who he interacted with to get excited for him and to perpetuate the energy that he showed up with - and it’s because of that excitement that they continued keep him top of mind for opportunities, and willingly go about looking for ways to help him - which translated into even more opportunities and eventually his ideal job.
So in effect, he was able to take those indicators and roll them into an enthusiasm that made the entire process exciting for him, as opposed to a chore that was a means to an end.
And then there’s a third reason why I think it’s important to look for the birds: if you hold back your excitement about what you’re working toward until the moment it actually arrives, then you’re depriving yourself of one of the true gifts of the human experience - which are the opportunities that present themselves each and every day for us to feel gratitude and to feel excited about our journey and our path. So if you’re measuring success only at times when you reach major milestones, then happiness for the most part will always be on the horizon and just outside of your reach - because those big milestones only come every now and then.
So the other very fulfilling piece of this birds before land mindset is that it helps you get in touch with and stay in touch with the momentum we can build and the insight we can gain from acknowledging incremental progress.
And in my opinion one of the most valuable things we can give to ourselves is the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be involved day to day in things that allow us to feel a sense of incremental progress, satisfaction, gratitude, and happiness. And your ability to sit inside of and enjoy that, day to day, begins with your ability to recognize those small yet significant indicators.
So to turn this into a call to action for you, I want to ask you to focus on two things:
First, I want you to call to mind something that you want to have for yourself, something that you’re working toward, an outcome you want to experience or a goal you want to accomplish.
And I want you to ask the question: what are the indicators you can already see that are the equivalent of your birds before land?
What is already happening around you that is confirmation that you’re on the right path. And again, it might feel insignificant to look to the small indicators - but every time we learn or acquire a new piece of information and look at it with intention, it shapes and shifts the lens we use to look at what’s happening around us - and helps us become better at spotting opportunities and making decisions.
So part 1 is: what birds are already circling for you.
Part two is: How are you going to make a consistent practice of taking stock of and searching for those birds? Because it’s great that you’re listening to this podcast right now and hopefully you’re setting an intention that you want to put this idea into practice.
But we know from experience that it can be a challenge to shift into being the kind of person who regularly looks for and acknowledges the birds. So I want you to walk away from this with one practice you’re going to instill for yourself that will help you stay focused on this concept.
Maybe it’s a weekly journal entry you write. Maybe it’s a practice where at the end of the day you acknowledge small wins that you’ve been accumulating. And I would try to tie this moment where you’re taking stock to a routine that already exists for you. So or example maybe right before you go to bed, before you eat dinner, before you log off from work, something that’s already anchored into your day that will trigger an opportunity to repeat this practice.
And this can be as simple as 30 seconds where you’re thinking: Ya know what, even though there’s uncertainty in my day and I can’t see exactly how things are going to unfold, there were indicators and small wins I can see and I know I’m making progress.
So as you’re moving through your day to day, just remember that it’s natural for things to take time to unfold. It’s ok if your first instinct is to want change to happen right away.
But I’d invite you to be open to the possibility that you can hold space, and that there’s plenty of room for, both your desire for the big thing that you want in your life as well as the small indicators along the way.
And once you learn how to hold space for both, you’re not only going to have that thing materialize in your life, in the way you want, and at the right time, you’re also going to also become the kind of person who can find fulfillment and joy throughout the entire process. Which is something worth working toward.
Go have a great workday.