Do you have attentional blindness?

As a doctoral student, I was so excited to be teaching a full load of classes and ravenously devouring my life as a scholar. Many nights were spent in my office, sometimes falling asleep in my chair there as I juggled teaching and research and well, poverty. I remember a friend visiting me a few months in and noticing that I was rather gaunt, dramatically unorganized, and was driving a vehicle that had expired registration and no functioning taillights or brake lights on my car! I was focused on being a doctoral student at the expense of everything else.

What about you? Have you ever been so determined to achieve something that you lost sight of everything else? Maybe you were chasing a financial goal, a dream job, or an ambitious project—only to realize, too late, that you overlooked something critical along the way. The world you're seeing isn’t the world you want, and maybe that’s because you aren’t fixated on the right thing. It’s not just bad luck or poor planning; it’s how our brains are wired.

In 1999, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time: The Invisible Gorilla (Chabris & Simons, 2010). Participants watched a video of people passing a basketball and were asked to count the number of passes. In the middle of the clip, a person in a gorilla suit walked across the scene, paused, and beat its chest. Half the participants never noticed it.

Why? Because they were so focused on one task (counting the passes) that they became blind to everything else. This phenomenon, known as inattentional blindness, reveals a critical flaw in how we process information: the more we concentrate on a single objective, the less we see outside that narrow focus.

?What Does This Have to Do with Your Goals?

Whether you're an individual working towards the next promotion, financial security, or an advisor guiding clients, there's a valuable lesson here: the goals we set can sometimes blind us to important realities. When we're laser-focused on a specific objective—saving a set amount, hitting an investment target, or landing a dream job—we often miss the proverbial gorilla walking through our financial lives.

?1. Your Ambitions May Be Leading You Astray

Have you ever been so determined to achieve a financial milestone that you ignored critical risks or alternative strategies?

·????? Investors hyper-focused on a retirement number may overlook changing market conditions.

·????? Entrepreneurs fixated on revenue growth may neglect profitability.

·????? Clients obsessed with paying off debt quickly may ignore the importance of emergency savings.

This is the tunnel vision trap: being so set on one destination that we fail to adjust to reality along the way (Kahneman, 2011).

?2. Failure Isn’t Always Due to Lack of Effort—It’s What You Didn’t See

Many people assume that if they fail to meet a goal, they simply didn’t work hard enough. But often, failure results from incomplete information—from missing the hidden variables that affect outcomes.

For example, a financial plan might fail not because the strategy was bad, but because the client (or advisor) ignored shifting economic conditions, unexpected life events, or the emotional biases influencing their decisions (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). Advisors see this all the time: clients fixate on a single issue (like investment returns) while ignoring others (like their actual spending habits).

?3. What Are You Not Seeing Right Now?

If you’re struggling to achieve a goal, ask yourself:

·????? What am I so focused on that I might be missing?

·????? Am I ignoring crucial information because it doesn’t fit my expectations?

·????? Are there unseen risks that I’m discounting?

You might not even be struggling to reach a goal but showing incredible progress. Yet, you are not happy. Something is not right. Perhaps it is that this one grand goal is coming at the expense of so many other things.

For advisors, this means helping clients zoom out. It’s not just about financial literacy; it’s about cognitive flexibility—helping people question their assumptions and see the full picture.

?4. How to Overcome Your Invisible Gorilla Moments

·????? Check Your Blind Spots: Regularly challenge your assumptions and get an outside perspective (a coach, mentor, or financial professional).

·????? Expand Your Focus: Instead of just tracking numbers, evaluate qualitative factors—your stress levels, personal values, and long-term adaptability.

·????? Use Decision Journals: When making big choices, write down what you considered and revisit it later to see what you overlooked (Mauboussin, 2012).

·????? Encourage Diverse Perspectives: Advisors, your clients need more than a financial plan—they need someone who helps them see what they’re not seeing.

Sometimes, the reason we’re struggling isn’t lack of discipline or effort—it’s that we’re missing something obvious. The Invisible Gorilla experiment reminds us that focus is powerful, but it can also be blinding. Whether you’re managing your own financial future or guiding others, the challenge is to stay aware of what you might be missing—because sometimes, the thing you don’t see is the one that matters most.

To learn more about my work, visit www.CharlesChaffin.com.

Or…to explore our advisor programs, or schedule a demo of MRI? for yourself or your firm, email me directly at [email protected].

References

Chabris, C. F., & Simons, D. J. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. Crown Publishing Group.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press.

Mauboussin, M. J. (2012). The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing. Harvard Business Review Press.

?