Have you been figuring out solution to a problem for seemingly ages? Perhaps how to consistently post on social media? Finding a way how to do the accounting for your business easily and in timely manner? Or how to improve your eating and exercising habits, while you feel you tried a ton of methods that just don’t work for you?
You may need to get a different perspective and more headspace. At times, we are all get stuck and feel like going in circles, or being stuck in the swamp unable to get out of it. Just think of it. Not only our thinking and finding solutions seem to be stuck, but also our bodies. We work in the same position in the same room, our daily schedule is more or less same, our way of thinking is mostly habitual. It gets even trickier if you are a freelancer or business owner who works from home, because you spend most of the time in the same place.
What we need to do is to consciously mess up the given order and proactively think out of the box. Easy to say, harder to do. Counterintuitively, the first thing is to loosen up, take off some of the pressure.
My client wanted more clarity on his planning and wanted to get out of the rut. He packed his white board, some markers and went camping for a couple of days. He came back with a beautifully organized board, and more importantly, with CLARITY and SENSE OF ORDER for the next 12 months.
I sometimes clear my morning off all meetings and deliberately design this time space to work without computer, sitting on my veranda instead of the office. Sometimes I go to a café. Or when I am stuck, I book a coaching or mentoring session with somebody who is really different than me or from completely different sector, so I get their different perspective.
My other client committed to going to the gym and straight after her workout, she heads for a café to work from a different place, using her most efficient working hours to make a dent in her tasks.
Did you ever lie on your kitchen floor and watched into your oven? I did that a couple of weeks while playing with my son, and I noticed the small bulb on the top of the oven and I realized I have never looked how the top of the oven looks like from inside while the oven is on. It was quite a wonder!
And this is what you need. If you have been trying to solve your challenge for days, weeks or months, think of ways how you can get a different perspective. Loosening up and changing the environment can give you the needed space to relax a bit and new perspectives will come. Talking to completely different people from completely different sectors will show you, that there is truly always yet another solution to try.
Be playful. Have fun. Ask yourself: “What can I do to get a different perspective on this?”. Does your solution sound crazy or silly? Don’t listen to that inner critic creeping in and go and do it. Did Newton come with the theory of gravity thanks to the apple falling on his head? We may not know the real story, but what we certainly know is that there is always a way. Go and find your apple tree.
