Mountains of Potential

I’ve recently had a TV fest of watching some wonderful programmes on feats of daring with respect to climbing mountains whether that’s watching Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson climb Yosemite’s El Capitan’s dawnwall (Netflix), or following Steve Backshall and team on a mission to climb a remote and unclimbed mountain deep in Greenland’s arctic wilderness (BBC).

I suspect like many people the mountains I climb will continue to be metaphorical (until a new knee has arrives anyway), and in this article I’m going to explore what we can learn from those who do climb mountains that can be applied to the every day mountains in our lives.

Setting goals

Very rarely do we hear of people climbing mountains they hadn’t intended to. A hill possibly, but a mountain requires that a goal be set so that appropriate planning and preparation takes place. Not least, that on the day in question we’re starting off from the bottom of the correct mountain.

No laissez faire going with the flow “let’s see what happens”. Which is certainly easy to do in our lives, despite that often precluding us scaling those larger mountains of our full potential.

Preparation

No mountaineer or climber set off without preparation.

Preparation that might include – researching what others have done, developing a plan, doing a reconnaissance, assessing current skills versus those needed to succeed, practicing and training, buying the gear needed, gathering a team together and developing trust of those you’re going to be doing it with, forecasting for when the conditions would be most favourable to succeed, and so on.

Preparation not only improves the likelihood of success but also reduces the risk of injury or even worse.

(The Garden Design - preparing the site article in the LYL ezine will help with preparation) 

Motivation

One common feature on the programmes I watched was how close they came to giving up.

Not giving up before they started, once they’d set out. More often than not because the climb was harder than even they could imagine. Unless they could tap into why they were doing it they’d have given up. Instead the motivation meant they gritted their teeth, dug deep and kept on going one step or hand hold at a time.

Lack of motivation is certain why many of us fail to achieve our goals – because the expected pleasure and success is not big enough to counter the pain felt to get there. It’s as if at the first hurdle we turn round forgetting why we wanted to get there in the first place.

(The Buzzing with Life article in the LYL ezine will help with motivation) 

Taking action

“Momentum is your friend” said Steve Backshall

That is, once preparation is complete; the team has been chosen and conditions are right, there’s no more holding back, no time for procrastination. Just one step at a time headed for a goal you know why you want to achieve.

Route

Part of planning will include deciding on the best route to get to the summit. On the day, however, diversions may be required. It’s where preparation and training kick in, providing us with the know how and confidence to take an alternate route to get around the roadblock ahead.

Celebrate

Once you’ve climbed the mountain and have a 360 panoramic view from the summit it’s time to celebrate. Whilst on the programmes I watched celebration involved tears and hugs that’s not a necessity – simply some time to celebrate and reflect on the achievement.

Which is where the article in the LYL ezine finished. 

As part of the Landscaping Your Life launch this week I've scheduled to visit a number of landscapes to share the process in the moment.

With arthritic knees climbing mountains is harder to achieve but where there's a will, and so we headed for Fort William and the Nevis Range, and took a Gondola to 650m and then walked a another 20 minutes to the Sgurr  Finnisg-Aig 663m viewpoint. 

Whilst up there I did a FaceBook live - which was a little blowy where I started to share some of the insights which included:

Aim higher 

We'd thought we'd go to Glencoe but due to bad weather, and a realisation is wasn't that much further we drove past and ended up at Aonach Mor. This mountain had the potential to climb higher, see further and more easily ie to get up Glencoe would have been by open ski lift, and as the weather closed in not a wonderful experience. On Aonach Mor, over looking Ben Nevis, we traveled up in the comfort of a gondola.

Isn't that the case in life - we aim for what we think will be easier, and yet aiming higher could turn out to be easier in the long run!!

The outlook depends on which direction you're looking 

To me, focusing on one of these directions makes the situation look very grey and dismal, another direction looks like hard work and no play, and the other much more inviting and motivating.

If I want to climb a mountain in future I know what direction I need to focus on to keep me motivated.

That said, you can't look out at the beautiful view as you walk - it can only act as a motivation and goal to get to the summit.

Don't chase your shadow, or allow it to chase you

As I walked I caught sight of my shadow on the ground, and found it hard to see the boulders and rocks I was needing to navigate around.

Which felt like a reminder not to get caught up on the "this won't work"s or "I can't do this"s but to just keep moving one step at a time.

And additional insight from the shadow was:
   

Shadow is only available when there's sun!

What mountain do you want to climb, and which of the above criteria for success do you need to address to move getting to the summit from a dream to a reality?

Landscaping Your Life is just one of the tools I use in behavoural skills coaching and training helping individuals and teams to tap into their inner wisdom to achieve their goals. Do get in touch if you'd like to understand more about how I can help you, or your team alison@landscapingyourlife.co.uk

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life to get back on track
Using nature as our coach, nature's landscapes as metaphors for our lives.

You can sign up for the Landscaping Your Life ezine here, or find out a little more about it here.

Whilst up the mountain I also explored further solutions for when you can't see the wood for the trees - to support solutions we've obviously covered previously here. 

  

The book, Can't see the Wood for the Trees, is available from all online stockists.

Life got in the way!

‘Life gets in the way’ is a commonly used phrase, and one I’m sure many readers can relate to. Before reading further therefore, you may want to think about a goal you’re wanting to achieve, and yet perhaps too often find yourself saying “but life got in the way” as the reason for it still being tantalisingly out of reach. 

As those familiar with this blog already know I love a good metaphor. Especially those metaphors that describe a situation as being less than what we’d like it to be. Mainly because, in addition to describing the problem, the metaphor also has the answer. How fantastic is that. There we were thinking we were describing the problem, and in fact it also has the solution too.

If this was a conversation just between you and I, the questions I’d ask might be a little different than this exploration. Together we could explore your personal relationship to your ‘life’ and how and what it’s getting in the way of.

This format doesn’t allow for such glorious questioning – all I can do is give you an example using one person’s relationship to the metaphor contained in those words, and then encourage you to have a play for yourself.

Let’s jump straight in with today’s willing volunteer.

How exactly does life get in the way?

“I see myself walking on a path and life jumping out in front of me stopping progress. If life was a person it would be someone who is very engaging and forceful and a big personality. Someone who is difficult to interrupt and also to say no to.”

Others of you may envisage life getting in the way in a totally different way. This process would simply invite you to explore your own representation more fully.

As there’s no right or wrong, and any and every thought may contain insight, I decided to follow the ‘forceful person’ idea a little further.

What happens next?

“Eventually I tire and give up with trying to make progress and just listen to the other person, now unengaged having given my power to them. Sometimes it feels like I set up camp, knowing I’m going to be there some time. Tent, sleeping bag, gas burner – the whole works.”

What happens next?

“ I can regroup only once the other person has gone away, and that can be after many days or even months, by which time there’s even a washing line on the path!”

Notice we’re not jumping back to real life wanting to understand what this all means in reality. At the moment, we want to continue the exploration within the metaphor. It’s as if our inner wisdom is able to communicate much more clearly and effectively via the metaphor – just let it share what it was to share.

What happens before the person appears?

“Hmm … even before the person (life] appears I realise I’m walking with my head down, plodding along, waiting for ‘life’ to appear. I have a heavy ruck sack on my back and seem to be dragging lots of pots and pans, and anything and everything ‘just in case’ - kitchen sink and all!”

When we set out on this exploration I didn’t ‘think’ this the direction the conversation would go – I’d thought life would be a wall, or a barrier of some sort. Something that could be easily dismantled or jumped over. But it isn’t, and I’ve used metaphors enough in my coaching to accept that the underlying metaphor will emerge, and what emerges is what needs to be resolved.

Let’s continue ….

What happens before the pots and pans and ruck sack?

“As I imagine retracing my steps I realise that the ruck sack has just got heavier and heavier over time. It’s as if every day something else gets added into the risk mitigation “just in case” ruck sack.”

They continue to go back to a time when they were simply walking on the path.

“As I do that, I feel very heavy and feel the need to walk barefoot on the green grass, and put my hands in the fresh vibrant water of a gurgling stream. How weird!”

Do you get a sense that everyone reading this, even if they related to ‘life getting in the way’, would find ‘life’ doing what it does differently? 

The aim of the process is to explore the metaphor sufficiently well to find solutions within it, or if not a solution, perhaps a different perspective that allows for an alternative outcome.

The end result of this exploration was a realisation that they could get to the same destination more quickly and directly via the grass and stream ie they didn’t need to follow the well worn path just because others told them “that’s how it’s done around here”.

It wasn’t particularly a new solution – which required an additional question.

What’s different about this means of getting to the destination than the previous one?

“Keeping my head up and focused on the end destination/goal at all times, not in isolation but as part of the wider landscape. On the path it’s easy to lose sight of the end destination, especially with head down focused on each step. Having a picture of the goal dissociated from its surroundings isn’t motivating nor helpful in understanding what to do next.”

Which is something I’ve observed with others when I use the Landscaping Your life process, where we use landscapes as metaphors for our lives. The metaphors have to use convention – there’s no defying gravity or missing out a season. It’s as if the roots that we need to be grounded need to be attached to a trunk and have branches reaching to the sky, or night must follow day, or tides must come in and out.

The plan we developed as a result of this exploration included:

• A clear vision of the end destination.
• A clear vision of the other destinations en-route (after all we might think we’re headed for Fort William but there are plenty of beautiful places along the way if we put our head up long enough and take notice of the journey we're on and not just focus on the path.)

• A clear plan of all key milestones needed to get there (for this individual just knowing and taking the first step wasn’t helpful. They needed to understand what was beyond the few meters in-front of them). 

• A clear sense of what head down plodding on the path felt like in real life, and a list of activities they could do that would remind them, metaphorically at least, to take their shoes off, put their head up and set their focus on the next milestone.

It’s as if doing this provided them with a map that would allow them to journey every day knowing they’d never get lost nor distracted, and yet at the same time enjoy the experience as they were 'in' nature not just 'on' it moving through it. Some might say more being and less doing.

If life is getting in the way of you achieving your goals what changes might you be able to make so that life is supporting you, rather than hindering you? 

Always available to provide coaching support using the Landscaping Your Life toolkit alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life

Using nature as a metaphor for our lives

Route map for achieving your goals

"What am I missing?" "Why have I still to achieve my goal?" "Why is success eluding me?" 

Recent LinkedIn updates had me applying Landscaping Your life (LYL) to goal setting and their achievement. I therefore thought that I'd explore the subject more deeply here, to see what other light could be shed on; the potential causes for lack of progress towards achieving our goals; and answering the above questions. 

LYL is a tool I developed over 20 years ago, and uses landscapes as metaphors for our lives, and helps us unravel challenges we're facing. That is, LYL assumes nature and its landscapes contain the same patterns as aspects of our lives, thus enabling us to see the solutions contained within the landscape, rather than what's not clear from the daily noise of our lives. 

As with any metaphorical exploration, this post is going to make more sense if you apply it to a real life situation rather than read it theoretically. With that in mind, please think of a goal that you've yet to achieve, that you'd like some clarity on about what might be stopping you making progress. 

Now, put that situation to the back of your mind as you read this post. 

In this example, I'm assuming that we're at A and want to get to B, and progress is made via the route we take to get from A to B.

Which suggests the first task is to understand where A and B are. And why you want to either leave A, or get to B. What will B give you that you don't have in A. Perhaps if you're making no progress it's because A has things B doesn't have?

Remember to leave the real situation at the back of your mind - don't wonder just yet how these suggestions translate into real life.

Assuming that's all as easy as it sounds, then the next step is to identify a route. In this example we're being told that one route is 13 minutes slower, and yet I know it meets a key criteria for me of taking the scenic route via Moffat.

Which suggests the criteria we're using for the route will also impact the route we take - fastest, shortest, most fuel efficient, most scenic, via C or D, least number of stops, least likelihood of holdups, maximising optimal speed, least driving skills needed, types of transport needed, petrol and other resources needed, time available and so on.

Which might mean that unless criteria are changed, we realise B is unachievable, resulting in us reassessing our destination and a third destination of E being identified. Even if that's only an over night location before proceeding to B the next day.

Once we know the criteria for route selection, there's all sorts of apps and maps that can help us plot the best/optimal route.

Although be careful not to jump to a conclusion that something can't be done if you're using the wrong app for the journey you want to take.

Even your choice of map needs to include both A & B, and be sufficiently detailed to help determine the specific route.

Of course, a great route is of no use if we're not making progress along it ie action is also needed.

Sometimes it's this initial first step that is what's missing. 

On some LYL coaching sessions I might ask people to demonstrated walking their route in the landscape. As they do this, sometimes the barrier to them achieving this goal becomes evident, and can be explored either via the landscape or more logically. 

For example: they may leave A, and get so far long the route and then come rushing back to A. We can then explore the reason for the hold of A over them, or lack of effective route etc. 

Or they may get distracted by C and realise they don't really want to go to B, or need to release the hold C has over them. (which reminds me of this vlog about turning a corner.)

The concept behind this LYL process is to explore the metaphor for as long as you can - no tangent is a bad tangent. It's simply a tangent that may provide the insight needed to help you get back on track. I'd go so far as to say follow the hunches and tangents - it's likely they're the nudges from your subconscious about where the solution lies.

Once the metaphor, landscape and tangents have been exhausted it's only then that we can revisit the original goal, and identify what steps we may wish to take in order to have finally turned that corner.

For example, suggestions might include:    

• Making B closer to A
• Understanding journeys can have detours
• Accepting B may not be the final destination
• Considering the resources needed to get to B  
• Exploring more about the benefits of getting to B
• Finding a new mode of transport

Which might translate to:

• Finding an interim goal you can achieve more easily 
• Understanding you may get distracted, and that may add not detract from the experience
• Accepting that progress towards the goal may help you realise a new more empowering goal, that lack of movement will never help you to identify
• Consider the resources needed to achieve your goal, and identify plans to obtain these
• Explore your motivation for wanting this goal, can you make it even more inspiring? 
• This may mean finding other people to help you to achieve the goal 

You may have taken completely different meaning from the above observations. That's why metaphors work, because we see the patterns we need to within the landscape, the patterns that make sense to us, that don't need to make sense to others, so long as we can translate it into action in the real life situation.

Yes, we could have listed these solutions without the metaphor - and yet often I and my clients have found the difference that makes the difference will be found via the metaphor.

What do you notice about your original goal? What action can you take to help get back on track? Do let me know how you get on, or if you have any questions, in comments below. 

Always open to speaking to those wishing to explore how LYL may help them or their team to achieve and even exceed their goals alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159. 

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life to get back on track

Other LYL posts that may help in plotting a course from A to B include:

• Do you need to test the water - or is that all you've been doing? 
• Do you simply need to see the wood for the trees? 
• Or stop going around in circles?
• Or need to get out of your comfort universe? 

You may also like this more logical exploration of goal setting and achievement from my Purchasing Coach blog.

Progress

A quick Landscaping Your life post today:

• Think of a situation you'd like more clarity on 
• Describe the landscapes - above and below 
• Identify how the landscapes might provide an antidote to that situation.

You'd be better off coming up with your own answers but I will provide some suggestions further down the post.

Insights from this landscape may include one of the following:

• Movement may not be easily observed but it is never the less being made
• Climbing the rock face will require the right equipment - be prepared
• You need to cool down the situation 
• The situation is currently too icy
• Is swimming easier than climbing?
• Or perhaps climbing is easier than swimming
• Once the wind takes the mist away it's easier to see the situation
• Or perhaps more mist is needed
• Once the ice gets to the water it starts to break up 
• Even icy water will melt the iceberg

Then consider how these might be applied to your current situation - perhaps you need to:

• Have more patience
• Look for the subtle signs that progress is being made
• Prepare well
• Look for an alternate strategy to the one you're considering
• Remember the right time to make progress may be in-front of you not behind you
• Concentrate on one aspect of the situation only
• Match the icy reception with slightly warmer and yet still icy response

I would welcome your suggestions, thoughts and comments.

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life

Inspiring change inside and out

Are you prepared

It's interesting how often in life when we're climbing a metaphorical mountain we forget to be prepared and set off without even the essentials. You wouldn't if you were climbing a real mountain.

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life

Inspiring change inside and out 

Incremental progress

The water on the Forth today was like a mill pond - very calm and quiet, and as a result the slow incremental movement of the tide was not noticeable.

So true in life - often the change doesn't come with a big fanfare made in big leaps just continual progress every day towards your goal until you realise you've got there. 

Alison Smith

Landscaping your Life 

Inspiring change inside and out