How To Get Unstuck Thanks to Magical Kingdoms
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Conflict resolution, Creativity & innovation
Photo Credit: Melissa O’Donohue Flickr via Compfight cc
Are you facing a particularly pernicious problem? Banging your head against the wall in frustration because you’re stuck & stumped? Stay tuned for some ease & how to find a way forward …. using resources that are right in front of your nose. Plus I’ll follow-up next week & share a fun, creative way to practice seeing anew & finding a new perspective.
But first, last week I wrote about Five Ways To See Anew & Find Another Perspective. They are easy tips & techniques for how to move forward when you’re stuck. Check out the blog post or see my quick summary below.
- Realize you have biases. We see what we expect to see.
- Take a hard look at your assumptions. Assumptions are tricky devils. They are so so difficult for us to see but often obvious to others. The answer? Question question question.
- Look in front of you. Look for the resources that are hiding right in front of your nose. You just might find a magical kingdom. More about this in a sec.
- Look behind you. Look to history & find the story; as in how the well recognized blue tooth symbol is an ancient king’s nickname.
- Look anew. Find an alternative way to use something – which is what I did when I discovered, while on safari no less, a new way (for me) to read magazines.
I also told you that I’d expand on #3, which is all about finding hidden resources, those that are hiding right in front of your nose, in plain sight.
The best way for me to explain this one is to take you back in time.
So relax, get comfortable & join me, in my Nana’s tiny, pink house on a hot, sunny Canadian day.
The old cloudy turquoise polished whorls of my beloved Nana’s linoleum kitchen floor were perfect for sliding my little girl stocking feet on. These same floors witnessed a constant parade of homemade bread, lemon pie & biscuits – all made by my Nana, a prairie farmer’s wife, as tenacious & strong as she was quiet.
In the tiny kitchen there wasn’t enough room to have a table in the middle of the room, rather it was pushed up against side of wall, which is where I was sitting as I watched my Nana walk to middle of floor, bend over, & with her shorts riding up over her knobby knees, seemingly out of thin air, lift up a brass ring & pulled up a trap door hidden in the floor.
As I watched with my mouth agape (wondering if I was going to get in trouble eating with my mouth open) I saw my Nana with new eyes. She must be a magician; all she was missing was a swirling red velvet cape
The trap door led to steep dark red painted stairs, which were chipped with age & worn slippery & smooth. I followed her with my eyes, which were as wide as a prairie sunset. The temperature changed; it got cooler, despite the heat of the day. The smell that wafted up was earthy, loamy & mysterious.
I had discovered a trap door leading to a magical kingdom (aka Nana’s cellar), right in front of my nose.
This newly discovered magical kingdom came to be the site of many happy childhood memories – from playing on the old wooden swing hanging from the cellar ceiling, feeling the coolness of the damp air contrast with the searing heat outside to years later, when I could write, leaving my beloved Nana messages on the old chalkboard. Can I tell you how my heart tripled in size, when every single time I’d come back for a visit (which could span a few years as we lived far, far away) the same message was there, which only then, I’d erase & leave her a new one.
Next time a problem is staring you down, stare right back & look for resources that may just be hiding in plain sight. Who knows, you might just find a hitherto hidden magical kingdom.
Annnnnd take action:
- You may be saying to yourself, ‘nice story Lee-Anne, but how do I actually do that?’ Stay tuned for a simple, fun, creative way to do just that next week.
- In the meantime stare down those pesky problems & look for magical kingdoms hidden in plain sight.
Tags: assumptions, bias, perspective, problem solving
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