What do you do to protect your perspective in the moment?

You did it again.

You got caught up in the moment and found yourself preoccupied with one thing. Which stopped you from seeing the OTHER thing.

A realisation that came after the fact.

Typical. 

And more than a little frustrating, because that other thing was really the MAIN thing. 

Now you have to wait three weeks for a do-over of that meeting.

Someone asked me recently how you catch yourself when you're in a moment like that. Because the good intention to "go to the balcony" often doesn't even pop into your head when you're in the thick of it.

As the Japanese proverb says, you can't see the whole sky through a bamboo tube.

And in the moment, our eyes are glued to the tube.

This is where we build the scaffolding to help us in the moment. The conviction set before the meeting steadies us inside it. The handwritten reminder in our notes to pause and step back. The awareness of the patterns we succumb to, and the specific trigger that sets us off.

This is the real work, isn't it. Building the underlying systems that help us fight the gravity of our patterns and proclivities.

What do you do to protect your perspective in the moment?