I'm really finding it hard to walk the talk on this one at the moment. I suspect I am definitely being busy for busyness sake - the need to "do" over rides patience and the inner knowing that tells me action now is likely to result in wasted effort and seeds that never flourish because I'm wanting to put them out in the ground before the last frost had been (usually June the 1st here in Scotland). It's virtual Chelsea Flower Show and so I'll be using gardening as a metaphor for our lives all week to sow seeds, dig deeper, and germinate ideas. Do follow hashtag#landscapingyourlife on Facebook or LinkedIn or even join me on Tuesday for a webinar looking as personal and team flourishing with insight from the garden.

You can also sign up for my Landscaping Your Life ezine and newsletter here.

A beautiful sunrise and a lesson in patience

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

Impatience does not serve us

I've spent a lot of time in traffic over the last couple of days and have encountered a number of unhelpful outcomes of impatience:

• Frustration - I was getting very impatient with the guy in front of us this morning driving at 10 mph slower than I wanted to. My extra speed would have come to nothing once I got into this queue - and in that 5 mile stretch would normally only have saved me 2 minutes! 
• Being delayed further - When faced with this queue this morning another guy in front of us turned round to take what we felt was a short cut (In the hope of coming out of a junction at a point 10 cars in front of us) - I smiled when we came out 5 cars behind us. 
• Causing undue stress in others - Overtaking when there's insufficient space and time to do so safely.
• Injury or worse - There's too many tributes along the side of the road - many I'm sure caused by actions arising from impatience.

Every week on the A9 here in Scotland there's reports of accidents, and at least monthly fatalities. It's a normal A road interspersed with dual carriage way. The hills are long, however, and as it's the main route north it has many lorries slowing down progress. There are multiple signs telling you how far till the next dual carriage way and there's lay-bys for lorries to pull over into too. Yet drivers still allow impatience to motivate unhelpful behaviours that might lead to any one, or all, of the list above.

I wonder what nature has to teach us about impatience?

During a coaching session in June, as we walked down this path, the client shared that they were frustrated with the speed with which things were progressing on a project they were working on.

I asked them to look around and consider how much of what they could see would have been here less than 8 weeks previously. The answer of course was very little of it. The bare trees and perhaps the grass. I'm sure the path ahead would have been illuminated with light from above and not covered in growth. If we'd come here every day for every one of those 8 weeks I'm not we'd have seen much difference each day. Yet within that time so much would have changed.

Next time you get impatient try remembering the outcome you're wishing to achieve and realise you're still headed towards it - many of the behaviours I've seen demonstrated on my travels recently may just stop you achieving your outcome at all!

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

The important meeting

Blog from the archives when I went to help on a friends farm for lambing.

Last Friday whilst on my farmyard adventure we moved some sheep from one field to another. About half a mile of it was along a country road. Obviously when doing this traffic can be affected - which happened on this occasion. A queue of 3 cars developed in the 5 or so minutes it took to move the sheep. One of the drivers asked how long it would take and when told "5 minutes" promptly turned the car around. This has happened before when one businessman exclaimed "but I have an important meeting" and has been known by the farmer as Important Meeting ever since. In both instances the detour taken would have been over 15 mins vs 5 mins of waiting.

I appreciate the frustration - I've been there and done that. When we're busy it's easy to allow our journey to be the most important journey anyone has ever made. To want everyone else on the road to get out of our way. To make 'moving' the goal - especially 'not moving slowly' or even 'not stopping' the goal. It does however highlight some questionable beliefs: 

• I am more important than anyone else
• Constant moving is more effective than stopping
• Moving quickly is more effective than moving slowly
• Others on the road don't have a valid reason for being there
• and certainly not as important a reason as yours

Next time you start to get impatient just look at the underlying belief that's generating that emotion, and ask your self about the validity and truth of your thinking.

Tortoise or Hare

The tractor I drove this weekend whilst at the farm in Cumbria had some interesting images for the gears. That is the gear I used would allow me to go at Tortoise pace, but had any of us been confident in my driving I could have taken it up to a Hare's pace - although I still think that's quite slow. 

I think the images reflect the journey I went on during my 4 day experience on the farm. 

Day 1: Gear/Thoughts 16 = Hare - Head full of what I did yesterday, what we're doing today and how far day 4 seems away. In other words head miles away e.g. I moved a sheep using it's lambs as bait (perhaps not quite the right word - carrot might be better) and my head got distracted and I wandered off to the pen we were heading for not realising the sheep had gone in the opposite direction. 

Day 2: Gear/Thoughts 13 = Rabbit - head a little less busy and distracted. Perhaps the hardest day as the head started to let go of things but the panic around that set in. When you're used to 16 thoughts running around at the same time it's hard to let them go to concentrate more attentively on one or two.

Day 3: Gear/Thoughts 6 = Turtle - head a little clearer - when we got to the tea breaks I realised I'd not looked at my watch, and was surprised it was that time already. When I moved sheep my attention was on the task in hand not thinking about anything else and as a result infinitely more effective.

Day 4: Gear/Thoughts 1 = Tortoise - I woke in the night and instead of automatically reaching for my phone to see what time it was I just thought "the alarm hasn't gone off so not time to get up yet" and went back to sleep.

Some people may go on a meditation weekend to achieve a sense of being. Others get creative and draw, paint or write. Others go for a run. For me it would seem - however odd it may appear - a few days hard work on the farm gets me into a state of being. 

What enables you to get out of your head and just be? More importantly when did you last do it and when have you next scheduled to do it?