Where do you look when you’re searching for something? Maybe it’s the next step in your career or learning about a topic. Maybe it’s something about yourself.
For most of us, this old jokes sums up our strategy:
A policeman sees a man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what he lost. The man says he lost his keys, and they both look under the streetlight.
After a few minutes the policeman asks, “Are you sure you lost them here?”
“No,” says the man. “I lost them in the park.”
The policeman can't believe it. “Then why are we looking here?!?”
“Because this is where the light is.”
Psychologists call it “the streetlight effect”: we tend to search where it is easiest to look. But limiting ourselves to the same people we already know and the same resources we already use won't help us discover new opportunities or new insights about ourselves..
Frithjof Bergmann, the father of “New Work”, says our strengths and desires— “what we really, really want”—are “like seedlings covered by deep snow.” You may not even know they exist. Finding them, he says, requires reflection and experimentation that most of us never make the time for.
One way to combat the streetlight effect is to join a WOL Circle with people you don’t know. Each of you is searching for something different, taking small steps over time. Whenever your search becomes unfamiliar or uncomfortable, you gain strength and confidence knowing you’re not alone.
The upcoming WOL Frauenstärken Program is one of the best examples of this. They connect German-speaking women (and men) to find and cultivate their strengths. The tagline is “growing together” (or “Gemeinsam Wachsen”). Though registration just opened, more than 300 people already registered.
