Overcoming Barriers, Part 1
Howdy, Bubba! Hey, if you're new around these parts, I just want to say how much I appreciate you dropping by! Oh, and you may want to subscribe to my feed. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat to ya!
[Note from the Proprietor: In my continuing quest to avoid taking responsibility for practically everything, you can blame this one on Brad Shorr. What started out as a short post has once again unexpectedly blossomed into a 2-parter. Ah, well; that's what happens when one waxes eloquent. Come to think of it, that's what happens when one bloviates a lot, too. But I digress.]
What do you do when you hit a brick wall?
That was Brad’s question in a post he recently highlighted as one of his10 favorite posts that inexplicably garnered absolutely no comments whatsoever! (Don’t you hate it when that happens? I mean, you slave and sweat over a blog post literally chock full of savoir-faire, not to mention pithy pundition. But when you push the PUBLISH button it seems as though all your, uh, fan took the day off and you end up with a big ol’ ‘goose-egg’ worth of comments.)
Anyway; I did the neighborly thing and began leaving comments here and there. But this particular post, Try, prompted a bit more thought than usual (that noise you hear); it immediately made me think of water.
A Big Pile of Sand
I remember as a kid, I was fascinated by, er, stuff - any and all kinds of stuff. However, as an adult, I must admit I’m not as fascinated with everything anymore. That’s because, now I know things.
Take belly-buttons, for instance. Nowadays, I know for a fact the reason some folks have “outies” and not “innies” is because that person must have held their breath too long and too hard when they were very little. (That’s what makes ‘em pop out, you know.) But now that I know that, I’m no longer fascinated by belly-buttons. See what I mean?
As I was sayin’, as a kid I was intensely interested in how things worked (and there’s a trail of disassembled alarm clocks, radios, and toasters somewhere in my past that attests to this truth).
For instance, one day my grandfather had this big pile of sand delivered in his driveway. Wow, this pile was taller than I was! (Oh sure; I know now it was intended to be spread on the lawn, but back then, to have something like that just sorta “show up” was like… well, like a Christmas miracle!)
Within moments I forgot all thoughts of homework, housework, make-work or anything related to the term “work” (there weren’t that many thoughts about those things in my head anyway), and immediately headed out to do some serious stuff: I went outside to play.
It was amazing. For about three weeks (Grandpa, bless him, let me “own” it for awhile) this big pile of sand became my private, personal kingdom - and I was the King! I built castles, roads, tunnels - you name it, and it was probably there. Along the way, however, I learned some interesting physics about water and sand.
For instance, did you know that if you pour water on a sand pile, it disappears! Wow! How cool is that? Even more important, through experimentation I eventually discovered the correct ratio of sand/water mixture that made it stick together, giving me poetic license to create all sorts of buildings, walls, bridges, tunnels, etc.
I even found that, by creating “river beds” and lining them with something much less permeable than sand (like the clay soil we had in our yard), well, the water would flow downhill quite nicely without disappearing! Now that was the greatest thing since sliced bread! I’m tellin’ ya, that pile of sand was like a one-kid science lab for weeks.
Water: an Irresistible Force
Did you know that water is right powerful stuff? Well, it is!
Watching the water flow downhill in my kingdom’s rivers, I noticed that it tended to form little “lakes” wherever there was a low spot. Whatever happened to be in the way: walls, buildings, dams - well, it either found a way around it, or was held back until it reached the lowest part of the barrier and then flowed over it. You know; simple physics.
But - and here’s the fascinating part - once the water got past any barrier, it quickly eroded the barrier away until it was completely destroyed.
I tested this phenomenon in several different ways. With a dam made of sand, well, it pretty much dissolved to nothing the instant water touched it. But, if I made it out of mud, then water collected for a while and formed a little pool. Over time, though, you could actually watch the mud slowly come apart in little chunks, one at a time, until the whole thing weakened enough for the water to find its way through.
Once the water started flowing, though, that’s all she wrote! Small holes became big holes, big holes became chasms, and eventually the whole thing came crashing down. Interesting, that something as simple as water could have that kind of power.
First Things First
By now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. Well, so was I. OK, fair enough. But before we go there, just for the fun of it, let’s change the word barrier to challenge.
(We’re on an economy drive here at the Zone; by switching from a three-syllable word to a two-syllable one, well, you can just imagine all the extra syllables we’ve kept out of a landfill somewhere! ‘Course, I used up a lot of extra ones in that explanation. And, er, again. Never mind.)
Anyway, every time we encounter a challenge, there are a couple of initial factors that usually dictate how we’ll respond: worth and motivation.
- Worth - First of all, you have to ask yourself: is the prize worth the struggle? Only you will be able to answer that one, I’m afraid. But you want my advice? (I’m going to assume here that your answer to that rhetorical question would have been “Why yes!”) Don’t be afraid to ask for advice (but from a trusted source, of course)! I’ve had many a time when it took someone else to explain why something was really worth striving for. Sometimes it’s the only way to overcome the built-in “nay-sayer” most of us have on call for special occasions like this.
- Motivation - Then, assuming you make it past that first hurdle, motivation is what you’ll need to even get the ol’ tookus off the couch. (Once again, I’ll warn you now; that ol’ “nay-sayer” can be quite convincing.) The key is to leverage that worth into sufficient reason(s) to proceed; in this way you’ll build up enough to take on any challenge.
So; now that you’ve decided the challenge is indeed worth meeting, and you’re ready for some motivation, what do you do? No, really; what do you do?
OK; here’s the part where I ask you guys to expend a little effort and actually do something (sound of audience stampeding to the door). Think about (prerequisite), then answer Brad’s question: What do you do when you hit a brick wall?
Please put your advice, suggestions, techniques, etc. in the comment box.
(And if you feel like spreading the link-love even further, how about de-uncommentifying Brad’s original post, too. That way it won’t feel so lonely and unappreciated.)
_____________________________
Thus ends Part 1 of this faascinting soliloquy pointless rambling post. Not to worry; Part 2 will be along shortly. If it’s worth it. And I can get motivated enough.
You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!
18 responses so far
Middle Zone Musings is a comfortable place to stop, have a cup of coffee, swap a few stories and share practical ideas for the real world. I don't ask for much, just a bit of your brain every now and then. Have a seat, take a load off, and relax...
Don’t want you to feel lonely - and I will pay Brad a visit too - promise!
Questioning and reflecting on the worth and motivation . Great suggestions.
Sometimes I hit the wall because it just doesn’t feel right. I found this particularly when I set out on my own as a coach and someone came to me with a contract idea. I got over it by setting up my own “sense check ” against my personal mission and values and I still do mini checks when I seem to have got stuck in the mud with something.
And another is to just ask myself straight out loud - “what exactly is stopping you from doing this” ( it is a pretty standard coaching question and I am happy to use it with my clients - so I really should walk the talk.
Hi Robert, between writing this post and de-uncommenting my posts, I don’t know how you got any work done this week! But thank you. Your reminiscences about playing with sand really brought back memories. Back to your post. It’ll be interesting to see how you tie these insights together in part 2. When I hit a brick wall, I try to break down the task at hand into very small chunks and tackle it incrementally. If I’m stuck on a press release about some major corporate development, I’ll just try to write the lead paragraph. Or maybe just the last sentence. Small steps. It’s like the end of Cast Away when Tom Hanks is explaining how he stayed alive on the island, he said he knew he had to just keep breathing. One breath at a time.
Jackie, I’m glad you mentioned “feeling right”; so many of us are afraid to trust our inner feelings about things because it “isn’t logical”. But that inner voice can sometimes be quite a good advisor, can’t it?
The “ask myself” thing - seems like that would be a good accountability technique with your trusted advisors, too.
Thanks for contributing, Jackie!
Small chunks - incremental bits - yeah, just nibble at it until you break through. That’s a tried and true technique that works with a lot of challenges.
And you’ll note there were only three posts this week, Brad…
Robert,
What a wealth of wisdom–and wonderful advice–you always provide! Love the water analogy!
I often meet challenges in this straightforward, unrelenting way. In fact, I sometimes turn things into challenges by meeting them this way.
But, once I come to my senses, I usually manage to smooth them over!
Thanks!
Jeanne
Jeanne, you can be rest assured you’re not the only one, um, blessed with the ability to make things ‘way more complicated than they need to be! It’s called analysis paralysis, and I’m the Regional Chapter President where I live. :-\
But I do appreciate the kind words. Maybe we should, er, hold the applause, though, until Part 2 comes out. I mean, you never know…
… naaaah! Go ahead and applause; I can use all the encouragement I can get!
For me hitting a wall usually means I’m stuck creatively. So then what I do is go find something that inspires.
If I’m stuck on a poem, I go read great poems. If I’m stuck on a story, I go read great stories.
The bigger issue is what to do when my daily chores start to feel like a wall. When I don’t want to edit–or answer my email–or meet deadlines. That’s a kind of wall that just takes discipline. I’ve got to open up the ladder and climb over my own bad attitude. Or whatever. The metaphors are thick because its late.
Good to see you on Twitter!
Yeah, there’s a difference between creative walls and discipline walls, Marcus. C.S. Lewis once said something like, “Even if you don’t feel like a Christian, act like one.”
That advice is applicable to just about every other endeavor we undertake; even if you’re not feeling like a (pick one: poet, writer, shoemaker, coach, etc.), we should just act one.
That was hard for me at first. Seemed almost… I don’t know, fake. But what I found was when I quit resisting (for whatever reason), settled down and just did the things I was supposed to do, they got easier! It’s kinda like Yogi Berra said about baseball: 90% is mental, the other half is physical. Weird, huh?
Robert,
Let’s just applaud both times! Why not? Judging from past experience, I’m sure both posts will deserve it!
Jeanne
Great question, Robert. I think it keeps getting easier and better. It is almost a feeling of I have been here before and managed my way out of this, so this too shall pass. So, it might be generated with practice and experience. I mean to say…if you are forty years old and I have more failures than successes in overcomine a challenge, I am not sure one can advise to simply start thinking ‘this’ way. Interesting questions though…
what is the lint called that frequents the belly button?
my neighborhood kids and I built a town mimicking our own from a similar sand pile when I was young - it was a summer adventure for sure — know what I loved about sand? How warm it was in the sun.
thanks for that memory
when i get overwhelmed or hit a brick wall I shut down - and when i shu down or spin my wheels it’s usually time to refocus
i have learned that if I dump all of the issues into a journal or a blog post ( ha!) that I tend to solve my own problems or somehow answers come - it’s that law of attraction stuff - i am not a devout follower of all of that - I just feel if I ask the right questions or any question at all - the answers appear.
i apply this to intense things like how will i pay this bill, to things like I don’t quite know where to put this item away - usually a pause and an asking will solve these things for me
I also think it’s great to pose the same question your peers - often they aren’t as attached as I am and their insight is invaluable
curious what part 2 brings
@Jeanne - thanks, I appreciate it! With y’all’s feedback, I can make part 2 even better!
@GL - I agree that experience is the best teacher, but that just means the walls are different and - usually - bigger and badder.
But still, you have a point; experience can make facing the walls much easier, I’ll tell ya. You’re less likely to suffer from the “can’t” syndrome, for instance, if you have a lot of successes under your belt you can “point to”. And there aren’t many “template” type solutions out there either.
@Karen - Sounds to me like you have a pretty good technique going. Do what you can yourself, and seek qualified help for the rest.
And I don’t know if there’s a technical term for BBL, but here’s a couple of translations I found:
Pig Latin: ellybay uttonbay intlay
Japanese Kanji: 臍のゴマ
Japanese Katana: へそのゴマ
[...] last night returned you to Earth and you missed it, before you proceed I highly recommend you first go here and read Part 1. I’m just [...]
belly button lint imy dear s unofficially called nurgle - giggle
Nurgle, huh? OK, let’s check it out. When I type define:nurgle into my Google search bar, I get the following:
“In the fictional universes of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy, Nurgle is one of the four major Chaos gods.”
Hmmm… so belly button lint = nurgle = chaos. Makes perfect sense to me!
[...] thing anyway, right? Why not just forget about it? On the other hand, hopefully we’ve all recently learned something from hitting brick walls, [...]