Time Sponges

Time goes by...

Sometimes time goes by so slowly, as Madonna and The Righteous Brothers remind us, but we all know the phrase that time flies when you're having fun. 

I'm sure that if we're honest with ourselves, in these days of endless distraction we probably spend far too long passing the time doing not much more than looking at a screen! 

"There's no such thing as free time, there's no such thing as down time, there's no such thing as spare time there's only lifetime"  (Mike and Isabella Russell)

It's funny how we like to compartmentalise our life. Dividing it up into easy to understand sections, like a GCSE revision chart, or a job where you have to punch your card in and out. I only had one job where I needed to punch my card in at the beginning and end of each shift, and these days the work I do is more outcome oriented. 

"It's funny how we like to compartmentalise our life."

Punching in...

But, as the quote above suggests, life isn't so easily divisible nowadays. The lines between, say, work and leisure, are blurry - especially with the pressure in so many areas to be constantly available. 

We rarely punch in and punch out of situations any more, and although this has the potential to give us more time, it's more likely that we just spend our time in the margins less wisely.

My father in law told me that when he worked in the local Council in the late 60s and early 70s work time was very delineated. You started on the hour in the morning, there was a set time for lunch and a set leaving time.

Because of this, even if you got to work early you didn't start work until the designated time, maybe reading the newspaper or chatting to colleagues instead. At lunch time there was a plethora of clubs and activities to join in with - all kinds of sports and leisure.

But all of this came to an abrupt stop when flexi time was introduced around 1973 or so. Suddenly people were freed of the burden of clock time and could undertake their hours more conveniently. If their bus got them to work twenty minutes early they could start early and leave early. All of a sudden people took shorter lunchbreaks, as it was their own time they were redeeming. The days of the clubs and societies were over.

"So how do we redeem the time we take for granted in our own lives?"

So how do we redeem the time we take for granted in our own lives? So often I get sucked into the quicksand of social media and put off the things I really want to do. Even as I write this post I've started hours later than planned having been distracted by a rugby world cup match and checking what's been going on in my friends' social media lives (answer, not much since I last checked).

Avoid the time sponge!

Happily I finally got writing but it took an effort of will! Not so long ago my wife and I came up with a way to postpone collapsing in a social media stupor in the lounge each evening after getting the kids bathed and in bed.

Rather than sitting straight down, which was deadly for lethargy (although not unjustified - raising kids and working for your crust IS tiring) we made an agreement that as soon as the kids were down we'd each spend an hour doing something productive instead.

So my wife crocheted for example, while I practised an instrument or made progress on my latest project in the workshop, or we went to the allotment, or worked in the garden. It was surprisingly effective! I'm not sure quite when we got out of the habit...

Sometimes the hardest thing is getting started isn't it? I'm the master of doing other things as a means of prevaricating - having a shave, doing the washing up... all good things but not necessarily the activity I really need to do! (Sometimes I feel like I need to psyche myself up for it though, especially if it's a complex piece of DIY).

"Sometimes the hardest thing is getting started isn't it?"

We're better in bursts...

A well known way to get started on something is to apply what's known as the Pomodoro technique - in essence giving something your full attention for twenty minutes and setting a timer to let you know when to stop.

The idea is that you have a short break after each session, then after every three or four have a longer break. I've never followed it to the letter, but setting aside a deliberate twenty minute timeslot has worked wonders for unblocking the paralysis of indecision and apathy.

Another exponent of short bursts was Charlotte Mason, a 19th century educator whose philosophy we follow as we home educate our kids.

She was in favour of short, focused lessons or learning periods, linked to how long children could productively concentrate. We find this works well in terms of keeping our kids' attention in our studies and activities during the week.

I must be clear that I'm not saying all of this so that we can all become uber prodcutive "maximise every minute" people. We all need downtime, plenty of sleep and periods to really let our brain switch off. We need to make space for quiet, contemplation and centring.

"I don't want your life or mine to become an endless to-do list"

I don't want your life or mine to become an endless to-do list, instead redeeming our time is about making sure we're investing the right amount of time in activities which are taking us in the right direction - towards our dreams, ambitions and goals. Little and often trumps bingeing every time - not just with diets but in many areas of our life - skill acquisition in particular.

"Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together"- Van Gogh

It's hard not to finish with a carpe diem, seize the day type call to action - but as Van Gogh reminds us, it's not really about the big stuff but about the little stuff. So in what little ways can you avoid the time sponge of distraction this week and pop the prevarication balloon in your life?

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Thanks for taking the time to read Time Sponges. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes or Stitcher for expanded musings and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Messy Mosaics

A swirly mosaic... not from Fishbourne!

For a few years at school I studied Latin, which wasn't actually as bad as it sounds. The textbook was a story of a family living in Pompeii, and had I persevered in my studies I would have followed their flight to Britain upon the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

All I can remember of my basic studies was that Caecilius was in the forum, and canis the dog was in the via. One highlight of my short time learning Latin was a field trip we took to Fishbourne Roman Palace, on the south coast of England.

"For a few years at school I studied Latin..."

Fishbourne is apparently the largest Roman residence north of the Alps, and has a larger footprint than Buckingham Palace! What it's most famous for though are the extensive and well preserved mosaics covering the floors. I distinctly remember the scale and grandeur of these, hundreds of years after they were first laid.

My kitchen floor... and some toy dinosaurs!

I've never laid a mosaic, but I have tiled a kitchen floor, one of the pieces of DIY I'm most proud of in our house. It was very satisfying to undertake, although it took me a few days to gradually piece it together tile by tile.

Since the room had various corners I had to cut numerous tiles into different sized rectangles and squares. The end result is a uniform layout, perfectly functional for its end use.

I'd like to say at this point that life is like laying a tiled floor, you fit each regularly shaped tile together to make the desired pattern, but in reality it's much more like making a mosaic.

The tiles we're working with are irregular, often small, and multicoloured.

"I'd like to say at this point that life is like laying a tiled floor"

In recent years, mosaic posters have come into fashion. From a distance, the poster looks like a regular picture - maybe a film star or a landscape - although a little pixelated. but upon closer inspection each of the pixels, each of the tiles is it's own image. Depending on your perspective, you'll see something completely different.

I like this as a life metaphor (I feel like I spend a lot of time looking for metaphors about life in the world around us). Each day we live it's like we're placing a new tile in the mosaic of our life. We may not get the whole sense of the big picture, and we'll see different pictures within the bigger one depending on where we look.

Stained glass

The beauty of the Roman mosaics at Fishbourne are the exquisite animals and people they depict, in particular the famous dolphin mosaic. What strikes me is that to make exquisite art you actually need irregular shapes, broken pieces. Whilst my tiled kitchen floor is a masterpiece in my own opinion, it's purely functional!

"To make exquisite art you actually need irregular shapes, broken pieces."

St. Philip's cathedral in Birmingham is home to gigantic stained glass windows designed by the eminent pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edmund Byrne-Jones, and made by William Morris.

They depict various scenes from the life of Jesus, in rich coloured glass. Depending what time of day you visit, and the light outside, the colours seem to vary so that the images look different every time. I love sitting in the hush of the cathedral and drinking in the vibrant colours.

The reason I mention these windows is that, like the best mosaics, they're made up of thousands of broken pieces of glass. Often its the parts of our lives that we feel are most broken which can end up making the most beautiful artwork in our life.

"No matter what tiles life has dealt us... we can be confident a masterpiece will emerge."

I wish I had a deep and profound ending this week, but I don't. Instead I just want to leave us with encouragement that no matter what tiles life has dealt us, even the broken ones, if we place those broken pieces in the hand of a loving creator, we can be confident that a masterpiece will emerge. We're all messy mosaics, and that's ok.

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Thanks for taking the time to read Messy Mosaics. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes or Stitcher for expanded musings and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

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If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Releasing your song

The streets of Riga...

Some years ago I found myself in a bar in Riga, Latvia with two of my closest friends. It was a quirky locals bar off a backstreet, but we didn't feel unwelcome, and we were swapping stories and reminiscing as old friends do.

"Some years ago I found myself in a bar in Riga..."

As the minutes stretched into hours the bar filled up, but we weren't really paying attention so long as we weren't getting in anyone's way and there was space at the bar to order the next round.

All of a sudden the place erupted into song, catching us quite off guard. We hadn't noticed that as people had arrived many of them had brought instruments with them, and now we found ourself in the midst of an uplifting and moving moment. Rich vocal harmonies blended with folk instruments and much foot stamping and table thumping, and I for one was captivated by the emotion, the passion and the music.

It was honestly one of the most memorable and moving moments of my life, and every now and then the memory surfaces and a smile creeps across my face. I later read that Latvia has a proud musical tradition, and that certainly came across during that experience.

"...all of a sudden the place erupted into song"

"Alas for the one that never sings but dies with their songs still in them" - Anon

Like the Latvians that night, we all have a song in us of one kind or another. Not necessarily words and music, but that thing that makes our soul sing. Alas indeed if we never manage to express that. 

Are you thinking in terms of hits and misses?

One limiting mindset that can inhibit us in releasing our life-song is comparison with people who excel in our chosen area. 

We can get sucked into thinking of life as hits and misses. Unless we're a hit then we must automatically be a miss. 

And of course, if you grew up in the late 20th century then you know that hits are few and far between.  Thinking in this way can stifle our own song, perhaps we even choose to keep it in rather than be an automatic miss.

"We all have a song in us of one kind or another"

The thing is, as we've moved into the 21st century, the idea of hits and misses has been completely turned on it's head, a concept that Chris Anderson explores in his book The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand. Unlike the TV and radio age, when hit makers filtered and selected what they considered would be a hit, in the internet age it's all about unlimited choice. Chris Anderson calls this the long tail - the bottom of an exponential graph as it tends towards zero. The funny thing is that given this abundance of choice, many people aren't choosing the hits, but instead they're looking for specific niches in the long tail. 

Big retailers like Amazon and iTunes have found that a significant proportion of their sales are from this long tail - from all the niches. Niches that would have been "misses" in a previous age, but which can now reach their full audience through the empowerment of distribution that the internet brings.

"What this means for you and me is that we don't need to be intimidated by the hits we see around us."

Don't wear someone else's armour!

What this means for you and me is that we don't need to be intimidated by the hits we see around us. We shouldn't hold in our song, but fully express it, in all our quirky individualism. Why? Because other quirky and individual people will appreciate it! We don't need to feel pressured to copy others, instead we are free to release our own song.

I'm reminded of the story of David and Goliath. One detail in the story is that King Saul, the big hit in Israel - the King himself - suggests that the shepherd boy David wears his armour. David tries it on but it doesn't fit, it's too heavy. 

David ditches the king's armour and faces the giant in his own way. We all know the end of the story.

You don't have to wear someone else's armour. You don't have to sing someone else's song. In the age of the long tail there is space for all of us to be completely ourselves. To contribute our own voice and allow our own soul to sing. 

"So don't stifle your soul song"

You're probably not Latvian. You may not be a hit or a king. But one thing you're not is a miss. So don't stifle your soul song, but ditch comparison, ditch the king's armour and go be all you're made to be.

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Thanks for taking the time to read Releasing Your Song. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Settlement

It's good to escape from it all at times

My family and I recently spent a week’s holiday camping in mid-Wales. It’s great to take time out
together, and in particular this holiday we avoided screen-time – not only to preserve phone batteries but also because we were so deep in the countryside that we didn’t even have phone signal.

This was a blessing in disguise as it took away the temptation to check my phone every five minutes for blog traffic, podcast downloads and emails.

Away from the whirling, churning daily distractions my mind was able to settle, slow down, and in the process I was able to find some additional clarity to thinking that had become muddy and opaque.

"Away from the whirling, churning daily distractions my mind was able to settle"

Now I’m not saying that smartphones, emails and the like are all bad – they’re not. But they do tend be party to an overall speeding up of our lives, and for all their positives they can make it harder to switch off. We can feel like we need to be constantly available to others - our friends, our employer. In reaction, it’s therefore healthy to occasionally re-orient and re-calibrate ourselves – to allow ourselves to switch off and slow down. To make ourselves available to our own feelings, dreams and thoughts. It’s often in these times that our priorities become clearer as the turbulence settles out.

I’m reminded of a science experiment about sedimentation that I must have done in primary school. We filled a bottle with water, sand, soil and pebbles of different sizes, then shook the bottle up. At the beginning the mixture was cloudy and turbulent, but over time the particles settled out, the bigger ones ending up nearer the bottom and the lighter ones near the top – the water cleared and the layers of different particles were easy to differentiate.

"There’s much to be said for being still and for allowing space in our lives for ideas, dreams, emotions and thinking to percolate."

Has your thinking become muddy?

Like the materials in the bottle, it’s often our lives that are the turbulent, turbid muddy waters – and we all need regular time for things to settle out.

Since we home educate our kids, a practice we enforce with them is the daily pattern of quiet time. Usually either just before or just after lunch they have an hour or so playing separately in their own rooms. No screen time, just imaginative play or reading.

We find that it really helps them to process not only the learning they’ve been doing that day, but also the emotions they’ve been feeling. It’s a time for those muddy waters to settle out. If they’ve been particularly energetic we often find them asleep!

There’s much to be said for being still and for allowing space in our lives for ideas, dreams, emotions and thinking to percolate. One of my little weekend treats is making myself a cafetiere of proper coffee on a Saturday morning (just decaf these days). It’s something I can’t rush – I need to leave it to brew for it to gain strength. 

Sloe gin and damson vodka take time to mature...

Similarly, just this week I’ve started making a batch of damson vodka. This is also a long process – having frozen and defrosted the damsons (to break the cell structure down a bit), I’ve mixed them with sugar and vodka in a sealed jar.

Every day or so for the next few months I need to shake the jar up to allow the damson flavours to seep out and for the liqueur to develop. Unlike the sediment jar, this mixture starts out clear but will eventually turn crimson the longer it’s left.

The rich and strong flavours of our lives often come out when left to settle, perhaps even when we have the right balance of mixing and settling.

Sedimentary rocks form as layers upon layer of sediment settle at the base of rivers, seas and lakes, gradually turning from soft particles into hard bedrock. AsI’ve said before, our days accrete into the bedrock of our lives like individual pieces of lego, or the particles in a sedimentation jar. Which leads me to ask myself, what layers am I putting down and is it what I want to form my bedrock?

"The rich and strong flavours of our lives often come out when left to settle"

It can be hard to slow down, settle and be still in our daily lives. Holidays are great, but most of our waking time is in the midst of the turbulent day to day. One resource that’s help's me to slow down is my friend Stefan Smart’s book “Deeper”, which is about forming habits of contemplative prayer. I’ve also recently enjoyed Nathan Foster’s book “The making of an ordinary saint”, in which he tells the story of the successes and frustrations he experienced on a journey into various spiritual disciplines in his day to day “normal” life. Much of this was about slowing himself down.

What's taking up space in your jar?

There's a parable about priorities in our lives in which a teacher fills a jar with golf balls or big rocks and asks his class if it's full. They reply yes. 

He then fills it with pebbles, which fill the gaps between the golf balls. He asks the question again, and the class agree it's full. 

He then repeats this with sand and then finally with water. Each time the class agrees the jar is full!

The metaphor is that if you fill your life with small stuff like material possessions etc then there isn't room for the big important stuff - health, family, relationships. 

It's about getting your priorities right, and I think it's a helpful metaphor. Sometimes to see what room is in our jar we need to let things settle out.

"Sometimes to see what room is in our jar we need to let things settle out."

So whether you’re feeling shaken up at the moment or not, I hope you can find some time this week to settle down and be still, and in the process to gain strength and enable the rich flavours of your dreams and talents to form.

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Thanks for taking the time to read Settlement. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Beacon Keepers

Is your beacon lit?

There's a scene in the film The Return of the King when the kingdom of Gondor is in dire need, and they light the chain of emergency beacons to summon aid from the neighbouring kingdom.

This is my favourite scene from the whole trilogy, and I always get a bit emotional when I watch each beacon light up, creating a chain across the mountains.

Thanks to the beacons, and the diligence of the beacon keepers, the message gets through and aid is sent on it's way.

"Beacons are important, but they're also lonely mountaintop places."

A few years ago, in celebration of the Queen's diamond jubilee, the beacons were lit all across the UK. Our nearest one was visible from our upstairs windows, and the day before it was due to be lit we climbed the hill to find a giant pile of pallets and brush standing ready to be lit. Whilst it wasn't quite as dramatic as the scene from The Lord of the Rings, it was exciting when darkness fell and we watched from a distance as the fire blazed into life.

The Jubilee Beacon we visited...

Beacons are important, but they're also lonely mountaintop places. They encourage people from afar, but the beacons themselves aren't accessible for many.

In this way I think they make a good metaphor for our creative gifts. How often do we feel a little lonely on our mountaintop, steadily building our beacon ready to be lit?

It can feel isolating putting in the hard graft, crafting our words into coherence, making our art - whatever it looks like. Placing our talents like the wood of the beacon, ready to catch fire. Being a beacon keeper.

And yet, if those manning the beacons gave up then the chain would be broken. The message wouldn't get through to those who need it. It's important work! Your gifts and talents are important too. Your contribution is for the benefit of others, like a beacon. As much fun as it can be to pile your wood up, the real benefit is for those who will see it, however far away they may be.

"If those manning the beacons gave up then the chain would be broken."

Your gifts are for others...

Whatever your gift, it's ultimately not for you. We're given treasures to give away - to hold in open hands - even though that can be a scary and vulnerable place.

Fear of criticism and rejection can tempt us to stay closed, to withhold ourselves, but our talents are needed - they're beacons for someone.

A link in a chain. A lighthouse. A landing strip. Cats eyes on a road. They provide direction and encouragement for others.

So take heart, take courage and light your beacon. Put your gifts out there where they can be seen by others.

Your talents and abilities are given for a reason, your contribution is needed - they're a beacon. And as Dr Seuss put it so well:

"You're off to great places
Today is your day
Your mountain is waiting
So get on your way"

Your mountain is waiting, it's time to build your beacon.

"So take heart, take courage and light your beacon."

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Thanks for taking the time to read Beacon Keepers If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Forward Vision

Plant wheat...

I saw a quote this week that got me thinking. I think it's based on a Chinese proverb, and it goes like this:

If your vision is for a year, plant wheat
If your vision is for ten years, plant trees
If your vision is for a lifetime, plant people

I really like this quote, and it made me question whether my vision - my dreams and plans - were long term enough.

I began to wonder what wheat might look like in my life, i.e. something that provides immediate sustenance but regular work in sowing, harvesting and processing.

I wondered what trees might be - parts of my life which take longer to grow but which provide shelter, fruit, and strength. And I mulled over what it means to plant people, to sow into others, to raise up and equip those around me.

"If your vision is for a year, plant wheat..."

As I chewed it over more I began to question which one was more important than the others, leaning towards the lifetime vision of planting people, and re-evaluating shorter term goals... perhaps these are less important in the long run.

Plant trees...

But then I had something of an epiphany. It strikes me that these aren't binary either/or statements. It's not a case of picking one over another.

It's more a reminder that we need to hold the short, medium and long term in harmony with each other.

We need a vision for one year, ten years AND a lifetime. We need wheat, trees and people. It's inclusive not exclusive.

What are the important wheat, trees and people in your life? Have you articulated your short, medium and long term goals?

It's a delicate balance, because we need to attempt to live fully in the short term, whilst to the best of our ability making sure that our wheat-planting is enabling us to plant trees and plant people.

"We need a vision for one year, ten years AND a lifetime."

In my life my "wheat" vision is about providing for my family  - putting bread on the table - which for this season means committing to a day job that I'm grateful for. Planting trees is about allowing creative seeds to grow - writing, musicianship, craftsmanship are three of my key themes in the medium term.

Whilst I'm tending my wheat I need to ensure these trees are moving from seeds to saplings to maturity, so that means making regular habits of writing, songwriting, playing my instruments and making things. Some of these habits are more regular than others, but trees grow at different rates and the important thing is that they bear fruit in the right season.

Plant people...

It's in the area of the "lifetime" vision that I've been the most challenged. In many ways the short and medium term visions are a little selfish - focused on what provides for me and which fulfils me.

The lifetime vision turns that on it's head - out of the abundance of wheat, out of the fruit of the trees, how am I blessing and developing others?

As a dad, my immediate thought turns to my kids - what I am sowing into their lives, how am I serving them and helping them to be the best expression of who they're made to be? Am I giving them enough quality time?

"The lifetime vision turns that on it's head - how am I blessing and developing others?"

But broader than that, how am I reaching out to others in my community, in my workplace, elsewhere? I hope that this blog and my podcast are outworkings of this. My intention as I write and record is to share encouragement, challenge and inspiration to help you become the best expression of who YOU'RE made to be too.

It's great to dream big, to aim high in the long term, but we need to look to the mid term and short term too. Are there habits you need to develop - trees you need to plant - to meet those ambitions? What can you do in the short term, what crop can you sow? And who can you help on their own journey?

It's a myth that we have to be perfect to help others, often we just have to make ourselves available. Whatever your wheat, trees or people are, my prayer for you this week is for your vision to expand!

"Whatever your wheat, trees or people are, my prayer for you this week is for your vision to expand!"

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Thanks for taking the time to read Forward Vision. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). If you're reading in August 2015 then please vote for The Potting Shed Podcast to win an award for "Best Self Help Podcast" here.

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Monkey Nuts

Don't be a monkey

Have you ever tried to catch a monkey? Apparently an effective way is to put some nuts in a container with a small opening. The monkey can reach its hand into the container, but as soon as it grabs hold of the nuts it can no longer withdraw its hand.

The logical thing for it to do is let go of the nuts, but the monkey won’t release what it now possesses and remains trapped.

I’ve never caught a monkey, so I can’t verify whether this is an effective method; however it does provide a good illustration for this week’s post.

"as soon as it grabs hold of the nuts it can no longer withdraw its hand"

How do we go through life open handed? It's a big question, when it's all too easy for us to hold tight to what we've got. In the end though, holding too tight can hold us back or hold us down like the monkey above.

I'm someone who likes to have a plan. I like to think I'm quite flexible and happy to change my plans, but the truth is that's not always the case. Sometimes it takes me a while to process different options before committing to a new plan - an expression of my "strategic" theme. Uncertainty can be a bit stressful, and for me at least, having a plan helps me feel a bit more certain about life.

"How do we go through life open handed?"

Are you risk averse?

Looking back over my life, there have definitely been times when I've chosen certainty over risk, even when the risk was positive and would have led to better things or more interesting life experiences.

I wasn't brave enough to go on a gap year before university, like many of my friends, instead choosing the somewhat more certain route of starting my degree - although even that was petrifying at the time.

I'm glad I took the risk though, because I had a fantastic time at University and my life has been enriched with friendships and skills I wouldn't have gained otherwise.

Tim Ferriss said this: "People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty" and I think there's something in that. Sometimes we hold so tight to the things we're certain about, even if they're not all that great, that we're unwilling to be open to new adventure and new opportunity.

A question I come back to time and time again is how can we be the best expression of who we're made to be? And I think a big part of the answer is being open to new ideas, new opportunities and new experience. Not holding tight to our monkey nuts but letting go - even if that's scary - and going beyond our comfort zone.

"Sometimes we hold so tight to the things we're certain about that we're unwilling to be open to new adventure and new opportunity."

It's a cliche, but we don't know what we're capable of until we try. When we stretch ourselves we might be suprised by the result - and it doesn't have to be an all or nothing leap into the unknown, but it could be more regular steps instead. Building a bridge, as Jeff Goins described it to me, or wedging the door to our dreams open a little bit at a time, in the metaphor Chris Whyley gave.

Are you stretching yourself?

Nelson Mandela said: “There’s no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you’re capable of living”, and yet I’m sure that many of us at times have been like the monkey – opting for the low risk and high certainty monkey nuts. 

I'm not suggesting you quit your job, sell your house, or move to Africa this very moment (although I'm not holding you back either!). But we would all do well to ask whether we're holding too tightly to anything, and whether we need to be more open minded towards anything - circumstances, locations, relationships, skills... what might it be for you?

Don't be a monkey, be the open minded, open hearted, best expression of who you're made to be. As Harold Whitman said: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs - ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive".

"we would all do well to ask whether we're holding too tightly to anything"

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Thanks for taking the time to read Monkey Nuts. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). If you're reading in August 2015 then please vote for The Potting Shed Podcast to win an award for "Best Self Help Podcast" here.

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

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Feeding the wolf...

Which wolf will you feed?

There’s a Cherokee parable in which a chief was teaching his grandson about life and the internal struggle we face between positive and negative thinking and actions. 

The chief described these as two wolves, a good wolf and a bad wolf, fighting for supremacy. The grandson asks “Which wolf will win?”, “The one you feed” the chief replies. 

I’ve written previously about the “re-wilding” movement, and the transformative effect that releasing keystone species (such as the wolf) can have on our degraded and over-controlled landscapes. It’s amazing, and it’s worth watching this video about what happened in Yellowstone National Park when they re-introduced wolves. It’s called a trophic cascade, and it increases the richness of an ecosystem.  

“Which wolf will win?”, “The one you feed” the chief replies. 

In my book Life Space: Give Your Dreams Room To Grow, I wondered what the metaphorical equivalent to releasing wolves in our lives might be. I suggested that it might be something to do with setting our “wild” dreams free to change the landscape of our lives, to introduce a missing richness. 

Are we being authentic?

Without being as dramatic as the Cherokee chief’s parable, I think we do face an internal battle between the wolves of authenticity and inauthenticity. I’ve been reminded of this as I’ve been reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s seminal book Flow, on the psychology of happiness. 

In this context, being authentic is about making life choices out of a rational evaluation of our own experience – it doesn’t necessarily matter what that choice is, so long as it’s an expression of what we genuinely feel or believe. 

By contrast, being inauthentic is about making life choices based on what we feel we ought to do, or what everyone else is doing, a bit like the character Emmet in the Lego Movie – initially at least, just living life according to the instructions he’s been given to be like everyone else. 

So the battle for authenticity is this: how can we really be the best expression of who we’ve been made to be, rather than conforming to what society or other people expect of us? It’s a big question, but in the end, like the parable, it probably comes down to which wolf you choose to feed. 

"I think we do face an internal battle between the wolves of authenticity and inauthenticity."

On our allotment I have been watching our pumpkins gradually grow over the last few months. We try to grow big pumpkins as we love carving them and I also like brewing pumpkin beer (something of a signature brew of mine these days). They’ve still got a few months to grow, but one of our secrets is planting them on top of a generous helping of well rotted Black Country pigeon poo – provided to us by a generous neighbouring plot holder, who has a friend who keeps pigeons (yes, people still keep pigeons in the 21st century). 

We love growing pumkins!

As big as our pumpkins have grown over the past few years (and our record weight is over four stone), that’s nothing compared to a Welsh chap who was featured on a TV gardening programme. He grows absolutely mammoth vegetables, and one of the reasons he’s so successful is the feed he regularly gives them when he’s watering them. 

By comparison, in our cold-frame in our garden are various seedlings that we enthusiastically planted in the spring but which we never quite managed to plant out on the allotment. These are now withered and dry due to lack of watering. 

"What seeds or dreams are growing in your life? Are these the things you really want to grow?" 

What seeds or dreams are growing in your life? Are these the things you really want to grow? Perhaps your authentic dreams remain in seed form, while what’s taken root is something unintentional and inauthentic – a weed. How we use our time and energy is a huge part of this battle for authenticity. Here’s a great quote from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: 

 “Unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing. Like everything else, work and leisure can be appropriated for our needs. People who learn to enjoy their work, who do not waste free time, end up feeling that lives as a whole have become much more worthwhile.” 

Taking time to develop our skills in something we love, something authentically “us” is a way to feed the right wolf. In this way we can build a bridge, stone by stone, towards somewhere we really want to be – something that Jeff Goins and I discussed when I interviewed him recently. If we feel there’s a chasm between our dreams and our reality then we need to build a bridge, and give ourselves time to do that. 

"So which wolf are you feeding? Are you feeding fear or faith?"

So which wolf are you feeding? Are you feeding fear or faith? Doubt or determination? Application or apathy? Making bridges or bonds? 

Wherever you’re at, it’s never too late to feed the right wolf. And if you need some further encouragement, then these words from the book of Philippians are a good place to start: 

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.” (Phil 4:8-9, Message translation).

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Thanks for taking the time to read Feeding the Wolf. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). If you're reading in August 2015 then please vote for The Potting Shed Podcast to win an award for "Best Self Help Podcast" here.

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Living in the Past?

Back in fashion?

How long does it take things to become fashionable again? It seems to me that it’s around 20-30 years. So 1970s fashions became super-trendy again by the late 90s and early 2000s, and in recent times even the neon colours of 1980s fashion have cropped back up on our high streets. 

My parents (still) have a 1970s “wizard’s hat” lampshade in their lounge, and now that they’re selling their house over forty years later, it’s become a charming vintage feature!

 “The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence”

There’s the occasional news story that crops up about older people who have lived in the same house since they were born, and the house has never been updated – no modern conveniences whatsoever, maybe even only an outside loo. There have also been documented cases of servicemen lost on remote pacific islands who, when finally found decades later, are unaware that the war they were fighting was over.

 “The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence”. We may not be literally living in the past, in a house devoid of modern conveniences, but perhaps our mind-set has become out-dated instead?

"We’re living in an era where the pace of technological change is accelerating."

We’re living in an era where the pace of technological change is accelerating. Life “before Google” seems almost unimaginable. When does the present become the past? And how can we keep up?

In my day job, I’ve been conducting mid-year reviews with my team. In many ways you’re only as good as your last project – it’s all very well having had successful projects in the past, but what is important is that projects continue to be successful. You can’t trade off your reputation for very long, it’s important to continue to learn, improve and apply that to the job in hand.

"When does the present become the past? And how can we keep up?"

Are you about to be replaced by a robot?

To really live in the present and keep up with the changes going on around us, we need a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset – something Jeff Goins and I unpacked in my recent interview with him for The Potting Shed Podcast.

If your thinking gets stuck along the lines of “this is what I’ve always done” or “this is how I’ve always done it” then the chances are you’ll soon be living in the past. That's why I recommended the book Who Moved My Cheese? in my recent post Seven Top Summer Reads. It portrays this point brilliantly!

Over the next few decades our workplaces are likely to change considerably due to advances in technology, no matter what industry we’re in and I saw a quote this week which seemed to sum up the changes this will bring: "You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and still be in business tomorrow".

So what’s the antidote? How can we develop a growth mindset? How can we anticipate and prepare for future change? I read an article by Geoffrey Colon recently where he posed three questions to help clarify our thinking.

• Can someone do it cheaper?
• Can a computer do it faster?
• Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?

We don’t know what the future will hold, but it’s certain to be very different from “business as usual”, so taking some time to think about these questions and their implications to our lives is a good place to start. It's not something to be afraid of, but instead it's an opportunity to look for a fresh path. So don't get stuck in the past, instead let's boldly face the future!

"You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and still be in business tomorrow".

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Thanks for taking the time to read Living In The Past. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for..

What are you expecting to see?

The ability to see is an amazing thing, and since we’ve had our Guide Dog puppy, it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot more. Perhaps it’s something that many of us take for granted? I think I do.

Our eyes have the ability to take in so much information all the time that our brains are selective in what we process – what we focus on, so to speak – and so even though we may look at the same thing as someone else, we may “see” something different.

"What we are expecting does alter what we think we see."

What we are expecting does alter what we think we see. In my line of work I am surrounded by lots of specialists: archaeologists, ecologists, structural engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers, to name but a few. One great thing about this is that each of these specialists “sees” the projects we are involved with and the sites we assess in very different ways. I went on a site walkover recently which demonstrated this really well. 

Where I just saw overgrown vegetation, the ecologist saw Himalayan Balsam (an invasive species). Where I saw a green box, the electrical engineer saw a substation and could tell me how much power he expected it to carry. We looked at the same thing, but they saw much more than me – and there's a point to be made here about how teamwork broadens our vision.

Sometimes life's a blur!

In the 1990s Magic Eye posters were, briefly, popular (you don’t see them around these days really do you?). 

At first glance, the posters were a mess of chaotic patterns, but as you focused on the image, as your eyes adjusted, all of a sudden a 3D image would appear – usually dolphins or a famous building in my experience. Not everyone seemed to be able to see these images though. 

Happily I could, and I recall that the way it seemed to work for me was if I blurred my vision for a minute, this seemed to help my brain to “find” the image. 

In hindsight I think the challenge of being able to see the image or not was part of the appeal of these types of posters – perhaps the challenge was too hard which was why their popularity was short lived!

Being able to see the right thing, to get the right information, is another important element in my working life. We often produce technical drawings for Quantity Surveyors to price from, for Contractors to build from, and for regulators to approve. These drawings communicate information in a particular way, almost coded at times, and it’s a constant bugbear of consultants that other parties (e.g. contractors) don’t seem to be able to read the information on the drawings! 

Interpreting technical information is definitely a particular skill, but I have sympathy on both sides. As the old adage goes, a picture tells a thousand words – although I would add that if it needs a thousand words to explain a technical drawing then you’re doing it wrong! There’s much to be said for production of 3D information and imagery in assisting a whole project team to understand the various different elements, and this is something we increasingly do.

"As the old adage goes, a picture tells a thousand words"

Don't judge a book by it's cover...

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “David and Goliath” he writes around the premise that things we often perceive as disadvantages may, in the right circumstances, be advantageous in different ways. 

One particular example he cites is the case of a simple IQ test with brief, basic questions, designed for almost instinctive response – measuring people’s “first glance” answers. 

What tends to happen is that people assume the questions are asking something they’re not, and get one or more of them wrong. 

Interestingly, if the examiners make the questions harder to read – by using a smaller font and a fainter colour for example, then subjects were actually more likely to get the questions right, as they were more likely to re-read the question. 

Gladwell cites this as a good example of “desirable difficulty”, when making something harder to understand works to our advantage, in this case by taking the questions more seriously rather than firing from the hip. 

As the saying goes, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (harder to do in the digital age anyway?), although I remember at school that some of my classmates were able to solve maths problems “a priori” – i.e. “at first glance” (I never was). Whilst a picture may tell a thousand words, perhaps we too easily assume the picture is of something else - depending on what we are expecting to look at.

As an aside, apparently a trick for drawing something better, maybe from a photo, is to turn the original upside down. I think this is another example of desirable difficulty, as doing this it forces us to consider what we’re seeing without pre-conception, helping us to draw it more “truly” rather than drawing what we think we’re seeing and getting it wrong..   

"Whilst a picture may tell a thousand words, perhaps we too easily assume the picture is of something else - depending on what we are expecting to look at"

How we see ourselves is a big deal. Evidence for this is in the current trend for before/after weight loss photos which seem to be on every web page! One reason people seem to take these photos is to see the dramatic difference in their body shape over time, as it’s hard to see change in our lives (whether weight loss or not) on a daily basis. All too often I think we can see ourselves in a negative light, especially when we compare ourselves to our perceptions of others.

Do you see junk or value?

Particular words I find reassuring on this whole subject are the words of Psalm 139 which expresses the thought that we are fully known and fully loved by God. Not accidental, not a mistake, not unknown. 

Personally, the knowledge that I am fully accepted and loved by God is something that has taken a while to move from intellectual knowledge in my head to something I really know in my heart. 

I expect that this is a lifelong process, however accepting this truth more deeply has helped me to accept myself more too, to be more comfortable in my own skin and in how I’m wired.

There was a BBC news story recently about a man who bought a seemingly worthless wooden maul from a car boot sale for £3. The thing is, he had a hunch that it was something much more valuable, and sure enough it turned out to be a 4500 year old Egyptian tool worth over £4000! I love news stories like this, and we love buying things from car boot sales which we can “upcycle” into something else – a moral of this story is that there is often value in things written off as junk. Likewise, God is in the restoration business and usually sees value in us where we see only junk.

So what do you see around you this week? How do you see yourself? What do you need to take a deeper look at? What situations do you need to turn upside down, to see from a different perspective? What work situations, family situations, finance situations do you need to take a second look at?

Helen Keller was born sighted, but as a baby contracted an illness which left her deaf and blind. Amazingly her parents sought out help and found someone who was able to teach Helen to communicate through touch. Despite the significant disadvantage of not being able to see or hear, Helen went on to become the first deaf-blind person to gain a degree, and subsequently became an author and lecturer. Helen famously once said: “The only thing worse than being blind is having no vision”. Challenging stuff!

"This week, as well as appreciating the gift of sight, why not also look for and take the next step towards your vision, whatever that may be."

As I’ve been learning from having our Guide Dog puppy, sight is not something to be taken for granted. This week, as well as appreciating the gift of sight, why not also look for and take the next step towards your vision, whatever that may be.

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Thanks for taking the time to read What We See Depends Mainly On What We Look For. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.